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Hunch   /həntʃ/   Listen
Hunch

verb
(past & past part. hunched; pres. part. hunching)
1.
Round one's back by bending forward and drawing the shoulders forward.  Synonyms: hump, hunch forward, hunch over.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Hunch" Quotes from Famous Books



... gravel paths I have a feeling that Dickie's father and the Crag and Sallie's girl-babies are fomenting around in my mind getting ready to pop the cork of an idea soon. The combination feels like some kind of a hunch—I sat still for a long time and let it seethe, while I ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... knock down a few with the horse, but that won't hurt 'em to speak of. It wouldn't pain me none to knock that marshal about half ways down the street—not for anything he's done to me, but because I've got a hunch he talked pretty ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx

... myself that Chester wasn't any self-starter. I saw he'd have to be cranked by an outsider if he was going to win a place of his own in the New Dawn. And I kept thinking wily, and the next P.M. when Nettie and I was downtown I got my hunch. You know that music store on Fourth Street across from the Boston Cash Emporium. It's kept by C. Wilbur Todd, and out in front in a glass case he had a mechanical banjo that was playing 'The Rosary' with variations when ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... said Bell feverishly, "that plug in to take the place of the longer-wave ones. I'm going to try them. It's a hunch, and it's crazy, but...." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... the wind! Come, hunch with me over the fire, Dream of the dreams that leered and grinned, Ere the blood of the Year got chilled and thinned, And the death came ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley

... Billy; "not in that round. I'm reserving the finish for the fifth round, and if you want to win some money you can take the hunch!" ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... ripe for me to do my marvellous vanishing stunt. You see, I had a hunch that the dear captain would turn things over in his mind and finally determine not to accept my credentials at their face value. So I kind of stuck round the wireless room with my ears intelligently pricked forward. Sure ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... establish the fact that he is away behind time getting home. You know, this is where his horse falls with him, and he lies out all night, and Big Medicine brings him in next day. You kind of have a hunch that something is wrong, and you keep looking for him. Sabe." He fussed with the camera, adjusting it to what seemed to him the right focus. "Want to rehearse it ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... a hunch he was holding back. I waited until he had finished with Charley, and then went, down the hall ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe

... down right under the castle windows, and as soon as the sun went down, out they came, trolls and witches, red-eyed, long-nosed, hunch-backed hags, tumbling over each other, scolding, hurrying and scurrying hither ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen

... and out popped a whole stream of those little crystal balls. They're his spores, or eggs, or seeds—call 'em what you want. They went bouncing by across Xanthus just as they'd bounced by us back in the Mare Chronium. I've a hunch how they work, too—this is for your information, Leroy. I think the crystal shell of silica is no more than a protective covering, like an eggshell, and that the active principle is the smell inside. It's some sort of gas that attacks silicon, and if the shell ...
— A Martian Odyssey • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... for a while. All I have to say adds up to one thing. You won't like it, because it doesn't sound scientific. That doesn't mean it isn't good science, because it is. Just remember this: when you're in a jam, trust your hunch ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage

... in the back room when he wasn't looking. Of evenings he sat with his door opened and his eyes fastened on the portieres. He would sit like that for hours and his leathery face would become gray. His little eyes would widen and his body would hunch up as if he were stiffening. But ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... if it might mean losing your chance of coming back after Christmas. I need that scholarship the worst way and I have a hunch that I'll get it if I don't get into trouble. I had it last year, you know. I haven't done very well with business this Fall; fellows haven't seemed to want things much. No, if Dreer figured out that I wouldn't go after him on account of the scholarship, ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour

... Then he brought them a long mug apiece made of glass, and frowned. By-and-by he stalked gloomily in with a hunch of bread apiece, and exit with an injured air. Expectation thus raised, the guests sat for nearly an hour balancing the wooden spoons, and with their own knives whittling the bread. Eventually, when hope was extinct, patience worn out, and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... unobtrusively from their fellows, and by the time the last boy has gone through the door, they are scudding across the meadow to Speug's stable-yard, where they will make their preparations. Sometimes nothing more is needed than a hunch of bread and some fish-hooks; but as they ran Speug had dropped the word Woody Island, and a day on Woody Island was a work of art. It lay a couple of miles above the town, long and narrow, formed with a division ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... we been learning something when the Frenchmans themself know what we are talking about and I and Lee will have the laugh on the rest of the boys when we get there that is if we do get there but for some reason another I have got a hunch that we won't never see France and I can't explain why but once in a while a man gets a hunch and a lot of times they are ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner

... got converted. I been in Big Bethel (church) on my knees praying under one of de preachers. I see a great, big, dark pack on my back, and it had me all bent over and my shoulders drawn down, all hunch up. I look up and I see de glory, I see a big beautiful light, a great light, and in de middle is de Sabior, hanging so (extending her arms) just like He died. Den I gone to praying good, and I ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... the north and south of the painting; they carry staffs of lightning ornamented with eagle plumes and sunbeams. Their bodies are nude except the loin skirt; their leggings and moccasins are the same as the others. The hunch upon the back is a black cloud, and the three groups of white lines denote corn and other seeds of vegetation. Five eagle plumes are attached to the cloud backs (eagles live with the clouds); the body is surrounded with sunlight; the ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various

... on the common four miles away firing was scarce, and food was scarcer. The owner of the house did not care to spend more than a very limited sum of money on coals and food. There was nothing in the cottage for Mrs. Church's supper except a bit of stale cake, a hunch of brown bread, and a little tea. The tea would have to be drunk without milk, and with only a modicum of brown sugar, for Mrs. Church was determined to spend no money, if possible, until Mrs. Hopkins paid the debt which ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... will help you. You've had your tea. No! Well, drink up this,—it is cold enough—and take this hunch of bread. I am afraid there's nothing better to be had. And here's sixpence, in case you want a ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... hunch I can fix that thing so it will run," he shouted to make himself heard above ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes

... for Ashville had been discharged, the stuff for Shendon stowed away. A fresh horse waited on the path; the gathering of people had scattered, carrying their goods and their gossip with them. The boy was feasting upon a hunch of bread and cheese, as a change from devouring his story. Bargee was in the act of stepping on board when a man laid a hand on his arm, and a rough voice arrested his steps. Two persons were ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur

... these for the marks of Billinger's presence at the wreck. Now the man was equipped for other business. A huge "forty-four" hung at his waist, a short carbine swung at his saddle-bow; and there was something in the manner of his riding, in the hunch of his shoulders, and in the vicious sweep of his long mustaches, that satisfied Philip he was a man who could use them. He rode up alongside of him with a new confidence. They were coming to the top of a knoll; at the summit Billinger stopped and pointed down into ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood

... the teams, Sandy," he said, with surprising diffidence. "I know we were going to do it together, but I got a hunch on the first team. A kind of a weirdie, but the brains checked me on it." He placed a card on her desk. "Don't blow your top until ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith

... holly-bush, so hollowed out beneath that no house could have been drier. Under this canopy of green two men were already squatted, who waved their hands to Alleyne that he should join them. As he approached he saw that they had five dried herrings laid out in front of them, with a great hunch of wheaten bread and a leathern flask full of milk, but instead of setting to at their food they appeared to have forgot all about it, and were disputing together with flushed faces and angry gestures. It was easy to see by their dress and manner that they were ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... kinder scoffish, I fancied, and give 'er white shoulders a hunch. Says she; "I've no comments to make. It's along of my friend Mr. Punch Whom the whole Solar System obeys, and the Court of Olympus respects, That I wait on you 'ere, Mister ARRY. Pray what would you ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various

... the reg'lars," answered Klinker, "so don't get nervous. But say, I got kind of a hunch that here is where the little Doc ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... ain't. I've just got a hunch. Here we are a bit of floatin' iniquity glidin' through the mystery of them strange seas, an' the very officers on dooty sashed to the neck an' reekin' from the arms of the scented hussies below. It'll be ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... growing!' observed Aunt Philippa behind her fan to Fraeulein, whose round face was beaming with smiles at the entrance of the ladies. 'That gown was made only a few weeks ago, and she is growing out of it already. Jocelyn, my love, why do you hunch your shoulders so when, you talk to Lesbia? I am always telling ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... rod, Steve," commanded Max. "Then use your arms and pull yourself up on the limb. After that you can easily hunch along like I do, and get to the main trunk. It's all over but the shouting, Steve; and you can consider yourself pretty lucky to get off as easily as you do, with ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie

... returned Wiley. "There may be two opinions about that. I had a hunch, Mr. Blount, that you might spring something like this and so I made arrangements ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge

... thought the matter over for a minute. "That lodger on the top floor, Steve Skeels," I debated. "A poor bet. Yet—after all, he might have been a member of the gang, though somehow I don't get the hunch—" ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... trifling as not to claim the title of benefits. To produce a benefit two conditions must concur. First, the importance of the thing given; for some things fall short of the dignity of a benefit. Who ever called a hunch of bread a benefit, or a farthing dole tossed to a beggar, or the means of lighting a fire? yet sometimes these are of more value than the most costly benefits; still their cheapness detracts from their value even when, by the exigency of time, ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... know," said Frank, "I've a hunch that the U-87 is not through with the Ventura. You know how the German is. He doesn't like to admit he's been licked, so I figure the submarine commander is likely to have gone ahead and will be awaiting ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake

... This was my first experience calling turkeys and I simply shook all over. Suddenly I saw a turkey head stick up over the log. Then!—up hopped a beautiful gobbler. He walked along the log, looked and peered, and stretched his neck. Sure he was suspicious. Edd gave me a hunch, which I took to be a warning to shoot quick. That was a hard place for me. I wanted to watch the gobbler. I wanted to see the others. We could hear them all over the glade. But this was my chance. Quickly I rose and took ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... industrial circles, to establish eventually yet another profession. Instinct leads young men to enter upon certain callings, unless turned off by misguided parents or guardians, and as a general thing the hunch works out successfully. Philosophers from time immemorial, including Plato and Emerson, have written of this still, small voice within, and have urged that it be heeded. The thing is instinct—cumulative yearnings within man of thousands of his ancestors—and to disobey it is to ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton

... was acting on a pure hunch. He realized that his theory of Mrs. Clephane's imprisonment in the house was most inconsistent with the facts. Why did they release her last night, if they were fearful of her communicating to the French Ambassador the loss of the ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott

... a little hunch-back maid; and she told them who lived in the chief house of the village. It was uncommonly pretty; where all the houses were picturesque, and she spoke of it with respect as the dwelling of a rich magistrate ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Mr. Quinby. "A hunch on his back and a hunch in his heart. The Harvard boys had to stand for an awful joshing on the way they had been outwitted by 'Lo! the poor Indian ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield

... Yes, Sir! You forget I am or was Spirit, till I took up with your cast shape, And a worse name. I'm Caesar and a hunch-back Now. Well! the first of Caesars was a bald-head, And loved his laurels better as a wig (So history says) than as a glory.[233] Thus The world runs on, but we'll be merry still. I saw your Romulus (simple as I am) 80 Slay his own twin, quick-born ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... found guilty of endangering the safeguards of the British Empire and under the new law that had been aimed against German spies I was liable to seven years' penal servitude. Even then my spirits were not down. I had what Americans call "a hunch." ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves

... 1st, all divorcees will be required to stay one year, then they won't come at all. Oklahoma had a hunch and changed her law back to three months. Now the colony will transplant itself, then watch the death agony of Sioux Falls. She's foolish—foolish! The Easterners have made this burg what it is. Take away our influence and she'll sink into nothingness again. ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... should say that my mind was, and has always remained, with my mother on such matters. If God gives food for the use of His creatures, it is to His honour and glory to serve it handsomely, so far as may be; and I see little religion in a slovenly piece of meat, or a shapeless hunch of butter on ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... flaky, unctuous substance, prepared from an oil of the same name, drawn from a particular kind of whale, distinguished from the common whale by having teeth, and a hunch ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers

... a pretty good hunch that the thing will be all settled before another day," remarked Jack, nodding. "And if so, we can get ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel

... parlour beyond, when I entered, a man came out, a burly seafaring man, who asked me shortly, but not uncivilly, what I wanted. I called for a jug of ale. He brought it to me without a word, together with a hunch of bread, set them before me, and left me alone again, going into his snuggery at the back, and drawing the ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... an idea," he told the scientist, "that our scarlet friend who owns this place intends to treat us decently, even though his helpers are a bit rough. My hunch is that he wants to get some information out of us. That old bird back there in the council chamber told me as plain as day that they think they are going to conquer the earth. Maybe that's why we are here—as exhibits A and B, for them to study and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various

... aware that Colin was in the veranda with his back to her, looking out over the plain. The set of his figure as he bent forward, with his hands on the railings and his eyes apparently strained towards the horizon, reminded her of the determined hunch of his square shoulders and the dogged droop of his head when he had ridden away with Harris and ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... happens to fall on the face of a person, it causes a red itchy spot. Their necks are long, and concavely bent downwards, like that of a camel, which animal they greatly resemble, except in having no hunch on their backs, and in being much smaller. Their ordinary height is from four feet to four and a half; and their ordinary burden does not exceed an hundred-weight. They walk, holding up their heads ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... right and wrong, of humour, of admiration, everything is brought. There's no man so low or so ridiculous but he finds somebody else more so, and the London street-boy who sneers at the long-haired poet is exalted to a sense of superiority. I once met a human monstrosity—hunch-backed, cross-eyed, palsied, and wooden-legged. My soul sickened with pity, but his face brightened in a smile of contempt and his cross-eyes danced with glee. I appealed to his sense of the ridiculous. Listen ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... be ashamed of yourself!" broke out Joy, "playing such a trick on me. Do you suppose I'm going into such a place as this, to see an old beggar—a hunch-backed beggar?" ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... a hunch it was that way with you." The worst man in San Pasqual wagged his great head, as if to compliment himself on his ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... is in consequence of the sinful acts of kings that virtue decreaseth greatly, and sin beginneth to prosper. And when all this taketh place the subjects of the kingdom begin to decay. And it is then, O Brahmana, that ill-looking monsters, and dwarfs, and hunch-backed and large-headed wights, and men that are blind or deaf or those that have paralysed eyes or are destitute of the power of procreation, begin to take their birth. It is from the sinfulness of kings that their subjects suffer numerous mischiefs. But this our king Janaka casteth ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... her leave a letter at the hotel in Big Run!' he cried out. He was half-way to the door. 'She had the hunch then. By now Courtot and Devine and the rest are in the saddles, if they are not, some of them, already squatting on the job at Last Ridge! I'm on my way. Pony, come alive. Chase over to the court-house; ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... began to ring, Jasmin set out with a hunch of bread in his hand—perhaps taken from his grandfather's wallet—to enjoy the afternoon with his comrades. Without cap or shoes he sped' away. The sun was often genial, and he never bethought him of cold. On the company went, some twenty or thirty in number, to gather willow ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... habituated to conscious thought that when we reach some conclusion by any nonconscious process, we speak of it as a 'hunch,' or an 'intuition,' and question its validity. We are so habituated to acting upon consciously formed decisions that we must laboriously acquire, by systematic drill, those automatic responses upon ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... ter touch a slice Of me, for if you do, I'll come and cramp you like a vise. I'll root you, and I'll boot you, and I'll twist you till you squeal, I'll stand on edge and roll around your stomach like a wheel; I'll hunch you, and I'll punch you, and ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln

... have somethin' more to say when the subscription's closed—but I don't believe—no," she added, opening her bag and rummaging about among its contents till she hit upon a letter and brought it forth, "no, I don't believe I'll have to say a thing. I've got a hunch, Sylvester Bascom, that it'll be you that'll have the ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott

... take his wages from him, and, were it not for a lump of fat Bacon which my friend's Servants give him now and again for Charity's sake, he would have nothing better to eat from Week's End to Week's End than the hunch of Bread and the morsel of Cheese that are doled forth to him every morning when he goes to his labour. Only the other day, his sixth daughter, a comely Piece enough, was Married. The poor old Shepherd begs ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... a scholar. I've always had a suspicion he did a good deal of four-flushing about that. He likes to have people think he keeps up his French and Greek and Lord knows what all; and he's always got an old Dago book lying around the sitting-room, but I've got a hunch he reads detective stories 'bout like the rest of us. And I don't know where he'd ever learn so dog-gone many languages anyway! He kind of lets people assume he went to Harvard or Berlin or Oxford or somewhere, but I looked him up in the medical register, and he graduated ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... north and south of the painting. They carry staffs of lightning ornamented with eagle plumes and sunbeams. Their bodies are nude except the loin skirt. The hunch upon the back is a black cloud and the three groups of white lines indicate corn and other seeds. Five eagle plumes are attached to the cloud-back, since eagles live among the clouds. The body is surrounded by ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson

... hunch about this river. I may be wrong but I think it might take us right where we want to go. I'll bet there are interesting ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis

... eighty thousand faces rise, up to the last high rank beneath the awning's shade. High in the front, under the silken canopy sits the Emperor of the world, sodden-faced, ghastly, swine-eyed, robed in purple; all alone, save for his dwarf, bull-nosed, slit-mouthed, hunch-backed, sly. Next, on the lowest bench, the Vestals, old and young, the elder looking on with hard faces and dry eyes, the youngest with wide and startled looks, and parted lips, and quick-drawn breath that sobs and ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... hands with palsy, Rack my feet with gout, Hunch my back and shoulder, Let my teeth fall out; Still, if Life be granted, I prefer the loss; Save my life, and give me Anguish ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... that," replied Hal, "but something tells me it can't be done—a hunch, if you like. I have a feeling that if we attempt such a thing our whole expedition will go wrong. I can't explain just what I mean, ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes

... would be better not to enter any place where they would be questioned. Choosing an open space among the trees, Leigh took off the bridles to let the horses pluck what grass they could, after giving to each a hunch of bread from their store. Then he returned, with the blankets that had been rolled up ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... sat on his lichen-decorated, snow-draped bowlder, hands in pockets, so to speak, abominably untidy, with a pessimistic hunch of the shoulders, but a light in his eyes, a strangely malignant, devilishly roguish leer, that belied his appearance. Perhaps he was waiting to see if Cob during his struggles obligingly touched off any further deadly ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... side-saddle had been brought for Sir Gawayne's bride, but when the lady moved it became evident that she was lame and halted in her walk, and there was a slight hunch on her shoulders. Both of these deformities showed little when she was seated, but as she moved the knights looked at one another, shrugged their shoulders and pitied Sir Gawayne, whose courtesy had bound ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... tenderness and bitterness in his tone. "Chance brought that advertisement to her eyes. A hat-pin she'd dropped stuck through it, or something of the sort. Enough for her. Nothing would do but that I should chase over to see the Owl Building bunch. At that, maybe her hunch was right. It's brought me up against you. Perhaps you can help me. What are you? ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... disappears. That's your affair. ... I'll press my claims on Auchincloss—hound him—an' be ready when he croaks to take over his property. Then the girl can come back, for all I care.... You an' Wilson fix up the deal between you. If you have to let the gang in on it don't give them any hunch as to who an' what. This 'll make you a rich stake. An' providin', when it's paid, you strike for ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... venturesome ships, which lay at anchor or were gliding to a distant, beckoning sea. The little locksmith thought about the last six women he had loved. His attention was attracted by the hideously ringed eyes of a horribly hunch-backed gentleman who smilingly, with marked pleasure, although somewhat fearfully, was looking at him. The locksmith thought: hm—for fun, he remained stopped; with his clear eyes, which shone like polished black buttons on his face, he slyly watched the even smaller gentleman. Embarassed, he ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein

... I was dreaming," he continued to mumble to himself. "And it wasn't a noise. Must have been a hunch. Guess I'll get up and see if there's ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... man," she said brightly, after the first little start of surprise. "Come on in. The coffee's fine this morning; and I just had a hunch I'd better not throw it out for a while yet. There's a little ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... gave friend wife that newfangled camera this Spring I had a hunch that the dealers in photographic supplies would be joyously shrieking the return of good times and hot-footing it to the bank with the contents of ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart

... the figure disappear; in which I definitely saw it turn as I might have seen the low wretch to which it had once belonged turn on receipt of an order, and pass, with my eyes on the villainous back that no hunch could have more disfigured, straight down the staircase and into the darkness in which the ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... thing, it is always easy for the strong and crafty to twist him into new shapes for all kinds of unnatural purposes. The popular instinct sees in such developments the possibility of backs bowed and hunch-backed for their burden, or limbs twisted for their task. It has a very well-grounded guess that whatever is done swiftly and systematically will mostly be done by a successful class and almost solely in their ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... all among women. The children were all girls. Sometimes he wondered if a boy-baby might not have been a refuge. He was not very clean; his hands were still stained with picking over potatoes the day before; his shoulders in their rusty coat had a distinct hunch; but he was radiantly happy talking of the rich Captain Carroll. He seemed to taste the honey of the other man's riches and importance in his own mouth. Willy Eddy did not know the meaning of envy. He had ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... say it," replied Neale, "and advise your informant to be careful. I've always had a hunch that Reddy ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... "I have a hunch," he said, "that the two boys who are with them are officers out of uniform. I noticed that they looked the other way pretty carefully when that major who is sitting at the next table to ours ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... watching it for some time," Charley said. "I guess it's our friends, the convicts. They are late risers. Somehow or other, Walt, I've got what prospectors call a 'hunch' that they are not after us and will not bother us as long as they think we are ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... hunch. I'll bet that by the time I get married to Strathie there'll be nothing left but republics, and no titles at tall. His people came over with Henry the Conqueror and his title will last just long enough for ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... the stables they come and the boys are on their backs and it's lovely to be there. You hunch down on top of the fence and itch inside you. Over in the sheds the niggers giggle and sing. Bacon is being fried and coffee made. Everything smells lovely. Nothing smells better than coffee and manure and horses and niggers and bacon frying and pipes being smoked out of doors ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson

... really believed his own hunch. But, of course, if it hadn't been an unheard-of outside force that plucked the Queen out of normspace and threw her into this elsewhere, then it must be something Maulbow had put on board. And that something had to be a machine ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz

... Dave admitted. "But I've something of a shivery hunch that perhaps we'd better not open ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... Ike Steele not to disclose the proposed move to anyone else. Vaguely, Landy entertained the hope that someone—just who, he had not planned—would buy the Bar-O. Acting on a hunch, he "touched" his sister Alice for a hundred. On the drive-in, Adine stopped the car while Davy invoiced his available cash at sixty-five dollars. These conspirators now planned that immediately after a contract ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney

... northwestern shore of the old island of Hispaniola—the Santo Domingo of our day—and separated from it only by a narrow channel of some five or six miles in width, lies a queer little hunch of an island, known, because of a distant resemblance to that animal, as the Tortuga de Mar, or sea turtle. It is not more than twenty miles in length by perhaps seven or eight in breadth; it is only a little spot of land, and as you look at it upon the map a pin's ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... outcome of this change of groove he visited on Sundays all the churches within a walk, and deciphered the Latin inscriptions on fifteenth-century brasses and tombs. On one of these pilgrimages he met with a hunch-backed old woman of great intelligence, who read everything she could lay her hands on, and she told him more yet of the romantic charms of the city of light and lore. Thither he resolved as firmly as ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... right up to the lower edge of the screens and right away I got the crazy hunch that they were connected with spots on the map. Push the button for a certain spot and the plane would go there! Why, one button even seemed to have a faint violet nimbus around it (or else my eyes were going bad) as if to say, "Push me and we go ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... himself—then he gave some food to this dog, whom he introduced to Orso under the name of Brusco, as an animal possessing a wonderful instinct for recognising a soldier, whatever might be the disguise he had assumed. Lastly, he cut off a hunch of bread and a slice of raw ham, and gave them to his niece. "Oh, the merry life a bandit lives!" cried the student of theology, after he had swallowed a few mouthfuls. "You'll try it some day, perhaps, Signor della Rebbia, and you'll find out how delightful ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee

... robe Hunch Dorrigan stared with interest at the prisoner he was inconspicuously to assist into the empty ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... conviction. "What you want in the proprietary game is a jollier. Certina's that. The booze does it. You ought to see the farmers in a no-license district lick it up. Three or four bottles will give a guy a pretty strong hunch for it. And after the sixth bottle it's all velvet to us, except the nine cents for ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... Johnny Reb, you think you caught me that time. But you just halt and listen to me, I've a hunch and ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... did not talk. Zaidos was busy thinking of the present, with all its tragic incidents, and occasionally a funny happening to lighten the gloom. He thought of Helen, and wondered how her well-beloved patient was progressing. He had a sort of "hunch" as the fellows at school used to say, that Helen was a happy girl, and certainly, if the man was conscious at all, ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske

... said the commander carefully, "let's search the village. There might be more gold about; I have a hunch that this isn't all he hid. Let's see if we can find the rest of it." He sensed the relief ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... went down to the Middle, which was passenger territory. There was nothing there he wanted. He was too busy, had too many worthwhile things to do, to waste time that way ... but the hunch was getting stronger and stronger all the time. For the first time in all his three years of deep-space service he felt an overpowering urge to go down into the very middle of the Middle; to ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith

... hunch-backed monster, who with teeth is born, The mockery of art and nature's scorn; Who from the womb preposterously is hurled, And with feet forward thrust into the world, Shall, from the lower earth on which he stood, Wade, every step he ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... a maggot curved like a hook, carrying on its back an ample pouch or hunch, forming part of its alimentary canal. The reserve of excreta in this hunch enables it to seal accidental perforations of the shell of its lodging with an instantaneous jet of mortar. These sudden emissions, like little worm-casts, are also practised by the Scarabaeus, ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... the first discovery was made? Well, the T. P. Company had the whole country plastered with coal leases and finally decided to put down a fifteen-hundred-foot wildcat. The guy that ran the rig had a hunch there was oil here if he went deep enough, but he knew the company wouldn't stick, so he faked the log of the well as long as he could, then he kept on drilling, against orders—refused to open his mail, for fear he'd find he was fired and the job ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... "To the hunch-backed Tailor, called by the nick-name Silguero,[40] six blows of the best sort for the lady whom he compelled to leave her necklace in pledge with him. Secutor, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... she was gone, passing Preston by as though she saw him not, and ascending the stairs quickly, but wholly without agitation. They heard her firm, light tread along the corridor above. Then with a hunch of the shoulders the squire turned ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... Mother Theresa had never left the walls of that convent since she was ten years old,—had seen no men except her father and uncle, who once or twice made her a short call, and an old hunch-back who took care of their garden, safe in his armor of deformity. Her ideas on the subject of masculine attractions were, therefore, as vague as might be the conceptions of the eyeless fishes in the Mammoth ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... want to set out on this trail because it is about five miles long and we could not get home to-night. Anyway, I have a hunch that this fellow has piked off to the north. It's the easiest thing in the world to cover up a trail. Let's go around this north end of the ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton

... gold. It was an anomaly that gold should be produced in this region. No vein of gold-bearing rock had been found, except the one on Polter's property. Alan had seen a newspaper account of the strangeness of it; and on a hunch had come to Quebec, being intrigued by the description of the mine owner. He had seen Frank Rascor on the Dufferin Terrace, and recognized ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings

... Not a blamed word of evidence, except their own statement. She ain't his sister any more than I am. Did you ever see two people that looked less like they was related to each other? You bet you didn't. Now I got a hunch that the prisoner follered her to that guy's apartment. What for, I don't know. Maybe for blackmail. He got onto what was goin' on, and makes up his mind to rake in a nice bunch of hush-money. That's been done a couple of times in the apartment buildin' I'm superintendent of. A feller I had ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon

... as big as a house! That's what I've discovered! And I most surely do connect the plot with it. Did you ever have a hunch, Professor? Well, I ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... and, at that, the undeveloped resources are a damn' sight greater'n you can judge from what's been brought to light. Yes, Sir, I shouldn't be surprised any day to strike a gusher right here on my ranch! Rufe Terwilliger, twelve miles yonder at the Dos Zapotes, spudded in only six months ago on a hunch, and now with the valve-gate only part-way open, he's bringing in a thousand ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... You're a good anything—and that's the truth. You have looks and you have brains and I have a hunch through all that Emerald Isle sauciness you have a heart ...
— A Place in the Sun • C.H. Thames

... that," MacRae said, in a low tone. "I have a hunch that something crooked is going on, and I reckon I'll go down and see what that fire means. You fellows better go a little farther and ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... diving into the tin, brought out a hunch of bread and a knob of cheese. The voracity with which he fell on them, soon, with him also, stopped up the channels of speech. Louie, alarmed perhaps by the rapidity with which the mouthfuls disappeared, slid up on her heels and claimed her share. Never was there a more savoury ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... flat stone. The stone rested on beams of oak, and Lord Soulis gave orders that the guards were to keep the King's messenger waiting outside the gate, and pretend to be very kind to him, giving him a tankard of ale, and a hunch of bread, until some of the men inside the castle had cut away those great ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... "Give it a hunch, and then slip the bar up, quick, Phil!" called out Lub; for as he had helped close it he knew best how the ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone

... polishing hadn't been seen for years. They made the tips of their arrows sharp, Re-strung and burnished the Chief Bard's harp, Dragged out the traditional dragon-bag, Sewed up the rents in the tribal flag; And all in the midst of the talk and racket Each wife was making her man a packet— A hunch of bread and a wedge of cheese And a nubble of beef, and, to moisten these, A flask of her home-brewed, not too thin, As a driving force for his javelin When the moment arrived to spill The blood of the terror Hatched out in ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann

... Jack, holding comically to the port side of his jaw. "Oh, pshaw! Call it a plain United States 'hunch.' What's the tip the spooks ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham

... the mayor thumped the desk with his fist. "It's the 'Gink,' as sure as I'm sitting here. That's what I told those who were here to see me today and everyone of them called me a fool. I may be, but I have a man-sized hunch that I'm not." ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... he rejoined laughingly. "You're going to cut out the cafes and the lobster suppers, and I'm going to cut out my shiftlessness and indolence. You're going to be somebody, and if my hunch is worth the powder to blow it up, we'll show folks things they never thought were in us. We'll begin right now. You're ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... from Sandy's steadily accumulating winnings and departed for the craps table. He wanted quicker action than faro gave him. Luck flirted with him, never entirely deserting him. And Sandy won until the news of his luck spread through the room. The gamblers began to get the hunch that the Three Star man was going to break the bank. Not all at the faro layout attempted to follow his bets. Plimsoll's roll had never yet been very badly crimped. With the peculiar paradox of their kind, while they told each other that Plimsoll's game was square, ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... of the Counts of Santa Cruz. It is past ten at night and the rain is descending in torrents. I ceased writing on hearing numerous footsteps ascending the creaking stairs which lead to my apartment—the door was flung open, and in walked nine men of tall stature, marshalled by a little hunch-backed personage. They were all muffled in the long cloaks of Spain, but I instantly knew by their demeanour that they were caballeros, or gentlemen. They placed themselves in a rank before the table where I was sitting; suddenly and simultaneously they all flung back their cloaks, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... his pen can scarcely ever have been out of his hand. And not only was he perpetually writing; he read gluttonously. He would thread the London traffic, nourishing his unworldly mind from an open book held in one hand, and his ascetic body from a hunch of bread held in the other. This fury for literature seized him early. But the quality of his early work was astonishingly bad. An author while still a schoolboy, he published in 1810 a novel, written for the most part when he was seventeen years old, called 'Zastrozzi', ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow

... the body before him was of a cripple, short-legged, hunch-backed, long-armed, pigeon-breasted. The large head sat strangely top-heavy between even the broad shoulders. It confirmed the hopeless but sullen despair that brooded on ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... again. While the horses were being changed the prisoners were permitted to get out and stretch their legs, but were not allowed to exchange a word with each other or with anyone else. At every fourth stage a bowl of soup with a hunch of bread was brought to each prisoner by one of the guards at the ostrov or prison, where the convicts were lodged as they came along. There were rugs in the vehicles to lay over them at night when the ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... much evidence on which to base his reaction, Rick admitted. But when he reacted, he just reacted and that's all there was to it. Call it a hunch, or call it nonsense. That's how it was, and ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine

... cultivate a firm impervious shell. There are no comfortable townsfolk about him to remind him of the blessings of a happy mediocrity of fortune. When he looks out of his window he sees a battered old peasant against a sunny wall sawing off his dinner from a hunch of black bread. ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... hatching to reckon it. Who could tell but what Lorna might be discovered, or at any rate heard of, before the end of this campaign; if campaign it could be called of a man who went to fight nobody, only to redeem a runagate? And vexed as I was about the hay, and the hunch-backed ricks John was sure to make (which spoil the look of a farm-yard), still even this was better than to have the mows and houses fired, as I had nightly expected, and been worn out with ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... weeks at the outside, and maybe not that. I'll give you three pounds a week, if you will kindly hand it over to Mrs. Street, and say it's been sent you. But it's to go to feeding children. Let me see; the soup don't cost above a penny a bowl, and say a halfpenny for a hunch of bread. So that will give a good many of 'em a dinner every day. Will you do that ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty

... She was always dropping it out, and turning up her old dead-light on the company empty, and making them oncomfortable, becuz she never could tell when it hopped out, being blind on that side, you see. So somebody would have to hunch her and say, "Your game eye has fetched loose. Miss Wagner dear" —and then all of them would have to sit and wait till she jammed it in again—wrong side before, as a general thing, and green as a bird's egg, being a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... halted to collect our scattered forces. Hanging up by a hook in the entry, along with various other dead animals, polecats, weasels, etc., was the ugliest creature I ever beheld. It seemed a species of dog, with a hunch back, a head like a wolf, and no neck, a perfect monster. As far as I can make out it must be the itzcuintepotzotli, mentioned by some old Mexican writers. The people had brought it up in the house, and killed it on account of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca



Words linked to "Hunch" :   notion, impression, heart, bending, hump, flex, suspicion, bend, feeling, opinion, bosom, change posture, intuition, belief



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