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Itch   /ɪtʃ/   Listen
Itch

verb
(past & past part. itched; pres. part. itching)
1.
Scrape or rub as if to relieve itching.  Synonyms: rub, scratch.
2.
Have or perceive an itch.
3.
Cause to perceive an itch.
4.
Have a strong desire or urge to do something.  Synonym: spoil.  "He is spoiling for a fight"



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"Itch" Quotes from Famous Books



... Goodman Crop of Compton Farm, wants nothing but a plum and a gold chain to qualify him for the government of the City. My kinsman's stable-boy was a gibing companion that would always have his jest. He would often put cow-itch in the maids' beds, pull stools from under folks, and lay a coal upon their shoes when they were asleep. He was at last turned off for some notable piece of roguery, and when I came away, was loitering among the ale-houses. Bless me, thought I, what a prodigious wit would this have been ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... seems to be a greater degree of titillation, and to be owing to the stimulus of some acrid material, as the matter of the itch; or of the herpes on the scrotum, and about the anus; or from those universal eruptions, which attend some elderly people, who have drank much vinous spirit. It occurs also, when inflammations are declining, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... replied, "A conscience dark, either with its own or with another's shame, will indeed feel thy speech as harsh; but nevertheless, all falsehood laid aside, make thy whole vision manifest, and let the scratching be even where the itch is; for if at the first taste thy voice shall be molestful, afterwards, when it shall be digested, it will leave vital nourishment. This cry of thine shall do as the wind, which heaviest strikes the loftiest summits; and that will be no little argument of honor. Therefore to thee have ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri

... down with their ears to the ground to hear the farther. But all was still as the desert only can be, and the great battle which was expected had certainly not yet begun. But expectation of a fight excites men, and if at a distance they itch to be in it, this feeling even actuating men who fail to show any particular ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... at almost every page with indignation that his weaknesses and his failings should be disclosed to public view.... Johnson, after the luster he had reflected on the name of Thrale ... was to have his memory tortured and abused by her detested itch for scribbling. More injury, we will venture to affirm, has been done to the fame of Johnson by this Lady and her late biographical helpmate, than his most avowed enemies have been able to effect: and if his character ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... I'll be goin' to the pastor! Brush me off, August, clean me a bit! I feel as if I had the itch on my body! ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... seventy-three guineas, and let my old governess see what good luck I had at play. However, it was her advice that I should not venture again, and I took her counsel, for I never went there any more; for I knew as well as she, if the itch of play came in, I might soon lose that, and all the rest of ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... out that you are a woman with an itch to meddle at the righting of the world. There have been more men than women at the task, but such an one was I never. The King was never man of mine, nor should have been had I any say in the matter.' She half closed her eyes again. ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... was amiss, but what it was I couldn't at first make out, until I see'd the blackies jump out of the bushes, and then I knowed at once what a reg'lar fix you was in. I see'd ye fire at 'em, lad, and bring 'em up with a round turn, and my fingers was just all of a itch to be alongside of ye with one of them same revolvin' rifles in my fist, though I'm, a'ter all, no great matter of a shot. Well, I see'd ye run, and I see'd the little lady here step into the canoe and lie down; ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... Eczema, Rash, Tetter (Herps), Scald head, Milk scald, Plant poisoning, Hives, Mosquito bites, Small burns or scratches, Barbers' Itch, Parasitic diseases, Scaly or scabby eruptions of the skin, Itching piles, Acne, Psoriasis, Pimples, Blackheads, Cracked hands and lips, etc. A perfect ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... persons with the itch, and you endeavor to escape contact, you will stand in fear of distressing results when your ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... are not unfrequently troubled with diseases of the skin, which are often supposed to be the itch: for these eruptions they generally use repellant external applications; this ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... "I'm itching for a row like they say drovers in Monty's country itch for mile-stones! Let Fred ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... a snigger, touching the piano again, and Philip, sitting near the door, felt the palm of his hand itch for the whole breadth ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... Ramos once laughed. "They must be rotten. They're sore, and they itch something awful, and I can't scratch them, or change my socks, even. The fungus, I ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... in a row, all ptomaine poisoning, due to some rank tinned stuff they'd been eating. Yonder there, three men with itch—filthy business! Their hands all covered with it, tearing at their bodies with their black, claw-like nails! The orderlies had not washed them very thoroughly—small blame to them! So the Major made his rounds, walking slowly, very bored, but conscientious. These dull wrecks were ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte

... his passage to Hong-Kong, and achieved his ends quite as handily as in his present role of wireless operator. But his fingers had begun to itch again for the heavy brass transmission-key, and his ears were yearning for the drone of radio ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... falter when the close comes round, Or leave the substance to preserve the sound; You never wander after words that fly, For all the words you need before you lie. But I, who—smarting for my sins of late— With itch of rhyme am visited by fate, Expend on air my unavailing force, And, hunting sounds, am sweated like a horse. In vain I often muse from dawn till night: When I mean black, my stubborn verse says white; If ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... they burst into the redoubt after it was found that the Browns had gone, all, even the judge's son, were the war demon's, own. The veneer had been warped and twisted and burned off down to the raw animal flesh. Their brains had the fever itch of callouses forming. Not a sign of brown there in the yard; not a sign of any tribute after all they had endured! They had not been able to lay hands on the murderous throwers of hand-grenades. Far away now was the barrack-room geniality of the forum ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... my brother's and Mr. Holden's about several businesses, and went all alone to the Black Spread Eagle in Bride Lane, and there had a chopp of veale and some bread, cheese, and beer, cost me a shilling to my dinner, and so through Fleet Ally, God forgive me, out of an itch to look upon the sluts there, against which when I saw them my stomach turned, and so to Bartholomew Fayre, where I met with Mr. Pickering, and he and I to see the monkeys at the Dutch house, which is far beyond the other that my wife and I saw the other day; and thence to see the dancing ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... and the end of that mirth is heaviness," Prov. xiv. 13. Extrema gaudii luctus occupat.(235) There is no solid recreation to the soul in its retired thoughts, from all the delights of the senses; it is but like the pleasure of the itch, which no man esteems pleasure. But besides, as the things of the gospel affect the heart and soul by bringing soul-mercies and treasures, as forgiveness of sin, hope of heaven, &c., so there is a fulness in them, which may ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... is nor priest nor friar who can or will absolve him thereof; wherefore, being unshriven, he will still be cast into the ditches. Should it happen thus, the people of the city, as well on account of our trade, which appeareth to them most iniquitous and of which they missay all day, as of their itch to plunder us, seeing this, will rise up in riot and cry out, "These Lombard dogs, whom the church refuseth to receive, are to be suffered here no longer";—and they will run to our houses and despoil us not only of our good, but may be of our ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... like 'em as two peas, excep' they don't swar quite so bad, but they make up for that in prayin'—and prayin' too much, I reckon, when a man's a d—d hippercrit, is 'bout as bad as swearin'. But I tell you, the decent folks up North han't ab'lisheners. They look on 'em jest as we do on mad dogs, the itch, or ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... a goddess for a few hours every week, to have more money than she could spend on herself, and to be pursued with requests for autographs and grand pianos, not to mention invitations to supper from those supernal personages whose uneasy heads wear crowns or itch for them; and Senorita da Cordova told herself rather petulantly that Lady Maud would rather starve than be the most successful soprano that ever trilled on the high A till the house yelled with delight, and the royalties held up their stalking-glasses to watch the fluttering of her throat, ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... there, room for my Lord Melantius, pray bear back, this is no place for such youths and their Truls, let the doors shut agen; I, do your heads itch? I'le scratch them for you: so now thrust and hang: again, who is't now? I cannot blame my Lord Calianax for going away; would he were here, he would run raging among them, and break a dozen wiser heads than his own in the twinkling ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... disease is one of the most tragic examples of a great wrong done to do a little right. What if there are a few who deserve what they got? We may well ask ourselves how free we are to cast the first stone. And why single out syphilis as the badge of venery? The "itch" is transmitted by sexual relations too. Why not make the itch a sign of shame? The power that has done the damage is not the intrinsic viciousness of syphilis, but the survival of the old idea of sexual ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes

... not a nose provocative, as such noses mostly are, but a nose decidedly in earnest to make the best of itself and of things in general,—a nose that would push its way up in life, but so pleasantly that the most irritable fingers would never itch to lay hold of it. With such a nose a man might play the violoncello, marry for love, or even write poetry, and yet not go ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that write; I kept, like Asian monarchs, from their sight: 220 Poems I heeded (now be-rhymed so long) No more than thou, great George! a birthday song. I ne'er with wits or witlings pass'd my days, To spread about the itch of verse and praise; Nor like a puppy, daggled through the town, To fetch and carry sing-song up and down; Nor at rehearsals sweat, and mouth'd, and cried, With handkerchief and orange at my side; But sick of ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... Study or experiment, to some rare natures, is the unbroken pastime of a life. These are enviable natures; people shut in the house by sickness often bitterly envy them; but the commoner man cannot continue to exist upon such altitudes: his feet itch for physical adventure; his blood boils for physical dangers, pleasures, and triumphs; his fancy, the looker after new things, cannot continue to look for them in books and crucibles, but must seek them on the breathing ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... yo' par'n— no' a 'itch! [In difficulties with his overcoat.] When a gen'leman'sh invited b' th' lady 'f th' house t' partake 'f ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... herb which borrows Santa Croce's name Sore eyes relieves, and healeth wounds; the same Discusses the king's evil, and removes Cancers and boils; a remedy it proves For burns and scalds, repels the nauseous itch, And straight recovers from convulsion fits. It cleanses, dries, binds up, and maketh warm; The head-ach, tooth-ach, colic, like a charm It easeth soon; an ancient cough relieves, And to the reins and milt, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... cutaneous eruptions, and others would have been smeared with tar like sheep. His couch would have been the bare earth, dry or wet as the weather might be; and from that couch he would have risen half poisoned with stench, half blind with the reek of turf, and half mad with the itch, [322] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... those first days of August, comes to my mind now. In a great room to the right of the steps of the War Office a number of men in civilian clothes sit in gilded chairs with a strained look of expectancy, as though awaiting some message of fate. They have interesting faces. My fingers itch to make a sketch of them, but only Steinlen could draw these Parisian types who seem to belong to some literary or Bohemian coterie. What can they be doing at the Ministry of War? They smoke cigarettes incessantly, talk in whispers tete-a-tete, or stare up at the steel casques and cuirasses ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... man in a religious meeting trying to keep the tears back? You noticed that his forehead seemed to itch, and he put up his hand; you may know what it means—he wants to conceal the fact that the tears are there. He thinks it is a weakness. It is no weakness to get drunk and abuse your family, but it is weakness ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody

... lustily the same song, and no man with human nature within him, and human history before him, and with sense enough to keep him out of the fire, will be gulled by such professions, unless his itch to be humbugged has put on the type of a downright chronic incurable. We repeat it—when men speak of the treatment of others as being either good or bad, their declarations are not generally to be taken as testimony to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... what to do for an itch. Now, I'm going to make a bet. We had those points separated for a half-million volts discharge, but there was a dust-cover thrown over them just now. That, you notice, is missing. I'll bet that served as a starter lead for the main arc. Now I'm going to start that projector thing ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell

... hark to him!" cried the little fat man. "It is even thus, Dicon! Wit, lad, is a catching thing, like the itch or the sweating sickness. I exude it round me; it is an aura. I tell you, coz, that no man can come within seventeen feet of me without catching a spark. Look at your own case. A duller man never ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... "Come on, then, and let's get this stubborn beast into the cart." He gave a savage jerk at Finn's slip-collar as he spoke, and once more his nailed boot crashed against the bewildered Wolfhound's ribs. The man had an itch of anger and brutality upon him by this time. Finn leaped sideways with a quick gasp as the man's boot struck him and the cruel collar tightened; and at this sharp movement of his great body, there in the middle of the road, the pony shied violently, just as it was ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... that speculation in his day was active respecting the causes of this plague, according to the vague and fanciful physics, and scanty stock of ascertained facts, which was all that could then be consulted. By resisting the itch of theorizing from one of those loose hypotheses which then appeared plausibly to explain everything, he probably renounced the point of view from which most credit and interest would be derivable at the time. But his simple ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... novel-writing in the case of others: i.e. a flight from one's self, an ascetic extirpation of their cultural impulses, a desperate attempt to annihilate their own individuality. From our degenerate literary art, as also from that itch for scribbling of our learned men which has now reached such alarming proportions, wells forth the same sigh: Oh that we could forget ourselves! The attempt fails: memory, not yet suffocated by ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche

... Oh Lord, my teeth do—itch! He's going to give me a welcome on my arrival, he surely is,—a fisty welcome! He's a kind-hearted soul, I do believe. Seeing how master's kept me awake all night, he's going to up with his fists now and put me to sleep. Oh, I'm dead entirely! For God's sake look ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... let us sneak away, old chum; forget that we are rich, And earn an honest appetite, and scratch an honest itch. Let's be two jolly garreteers, up seven flights of stairs, And wear old clothes and just pretend we aren't millionaires; And wonder how we'll pay the rent, and scribble ream on ream, And sup on sausages and tea, and ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service

... SORBONIST; And weave fine cobwebs, fit for skull That's empty when the moon is full; 160 Such as take lodgings in a head That's to be let unfurnished. He could raise scruples dark and nice, And after solve 'em in a trice; As if Divinity had catch'd 165 The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd; Or, like a mountebank, did wound And stab herself with doubts profound, Only to show with how small pain The sores of Faith are cur'd again; 170 Although by woeful proof we find, They ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... I played again in good earnest. There were quite a number of fellows in the game and we all got a bit excited and plunged more than we meant to especially myself and Ned Delany who was out to get me if he could. He hates me like the seven year itch anyway because I caught him cheating at cards once and said so right out in meeting. I had absolutely incredible luck. I guess the devil or the angels were on my side. I swept everything, made about three hundred dollars in all. The fellows paid ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... existence must have shown the same front under such discipline. I did not see enough of their gentry to enable me to form an opinion about them; but the middling and lower orders are extremely filthy both in their persons and in their houses, and they have all an intolerable itch for gambling. The soldiers, though fainting with fatigue on the line of march, invariably group themselves in card-parties whenever they are allowed a few minutes' halt; and a non-commissioned officer, ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... themselves. Why are they again before the public? Had they hopes of skulking into obscurity among the motley multitude of certificates which throng the folio of the book? or have they like one of the moral personages in Hudibras, "catch'd the itch on purpose to be scratch'd?" It now requires an eye less keen than that of a ministering spirit to pierce the cob web veil which shields ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector

... gratefully, Protested his devotion is my price— Suppose I write, what harms not, tho' he steal? I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush, deg. deg.65 What set me off a-writing first of all. An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang! For, be it this town's barrenness—or else The man had something in the look of him— His case has struck me far more than 'tis worth. 70 So, pardon if—(lest presently I lose, In the great press of novelty at hand, ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... is a speedy Cure of the Itch, to take Coudouro giddi, a fruit of a Tree in form somewhat like a Mussel but bigger. This fruit they cut in slices and fry it in Coker-nut oyl. And with this oyl they anoint ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... touching my shoulder, he had almost thrust the point into my eyes, had not the Duke of Buckingham guided his hand aright." It is he, too, who tells the story of the mulberry mark upon the neck of a certain lady of high condition, which "every year, in mulberry season, did swell, grow big, and itch." And Gaffarel mentions the case of a girl born with the figure of a fish on one of her limbs, of which the wonder was, that, when the girl did eat fish, this mark put her to sensible pain. But ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... Maghair Shu'ayb, which belongs to the wretched Masa'id. He held the true Ishmaelitic tenet, that as Sayyidna (our Lord) Adam had died intestate, so all men (Arabs) have a right to all things, provided the right can be established by might. Hence the saying of the Fellah, "Shun the Arab and the itch." Thus encouraged by the Shaykhs, the "dodges" of the clansmen became as manifold as they were palpable. They wanted us to pay for camping-ground; they complained aloud when we cut a palm-frond for palms, or used a rotten fallen trunk for fuel. ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... straightway to the king, even as he was bidden. The king welcomed him with marvellous joy, honouring him right gladly. He cherished him richly, and was ever about him with prayers and entreaties that he would show him somewhat of things that were yet to come, for these he was on itch to hear. "Sire," replied Merlin, "this I may not do. I dare not open my lips to speak of such awful matters, which are too high for me, save only when needs speak I must. Should my tongue be unloosed by greed or lightness, should I be puffed up by vanity, ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace

... sailors came across it, they did not meddle with it, but hove it out of their way. I told him that I had handled it that afternoon, and had felt no ill effects as yet. But he said it made the hands itch, especially if they had previously been scratched,—or if I put it into my bosom, I should find out what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... me, though, when I tell you what worried me like the mischief for awhile? Family, parson! You can't live in South Carolina without having the seven-years' Family-itch wished on you, you know. I felt like a mushroom standing up on my one leg all by myself among a lot of proper garden plants—until I got fed up on the professional Descendant banking on his boneyard full of dead ones; then I quit worrying. I'm Me and alive—and ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... if he were clever and cunning; and the one who, if any person fond of detraction, rejoicing in defamation and censure, should be induced on any occasion to praise some man of note, fastens on him and alleges against him that he has an itch for praising people. "You are always extolling people of no merit: for who is this fellow, or what has he said or done out of the common?" But it is in regard to the objects of their love that they mostly attack those they flatter, and additionally ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... set a trap for eagles, and is watching it, would not eat rosebuds on any account; for he argues that if he did so, and an eagle alighted near the trap, the rosebuds in his own stomach would make the bird itch, with the result that instead of swallowing the bait the eagle would merely sit and scratch himself. Following this train of thought the eagle hunter also refrains from using an awl when he is looking after his snares; for surely if he were to scratch with ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... iris : (of eye), iriso; (flower) irido. iron : fero; gladi. ironmonger : ferajxisto. irony : ironio. irritate : inciti, kolerigi. island : insulo. isolate : izoli. isthmus : terkolo, istmo. italics : ("in—"), kursive. itch : juki. item : ero. itinerant : vaganta. ivory : ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... caricatures which followed the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. Here the satirist has seated the emperor (a lean, ragged, forlorn, miserable, diseased object) on a huge article of bedroom furniture, labelled, "Imperial Throne." He is in a forlorn condition, suffering from itch, with large excrescences growing on his toes. He is all alone in his island prison (Elba), and tempted by a fiend, who tenders him a pistol—"If you have one spark of courage left," it says, "take this." "Perhaps I may," replies Napoleon, "if you'll take the flint out." By his side we find ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... discompose the gravity of the bench, and provoke naughty interrogatories in more naughty law Latin; while the good judge, tickled with the proceeding, simpers under a grey beard, and fidges off and on his cushion as if he had swallowed cantharides, or sate upon cow-itch. ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... all laws, both of nature and civility. Many things which they have left off, after a while they fall to again, husbandry, navigation; and leave again, fickle and inconstant as they are. When they are young, they would be old, and old, young. [243] Princes commend a private life; private men itch after honour: a magistrate commends a quiet life; a quiet man would be in his office, and obeyed as he is: and what is the cause of all this, but that they know not themselves? Some delight to destroy, [244]one to build, another to spoil one country to enrich another and himself. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... That's rank falsehood. Fear'st thou not death? Fie, there's a knavish itch In that salt blood, an utter foe to smarting! Had Jaffier's wife proved kind, he'd still been true. ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway

... shrieked Griffith, still staring at the horizon. "Stay me not; my hands itch for their throats; my heart thirsts for their blood; but I'll not hang for a priest and a wanton." Then he suddenly turned on Leicester, "Let thou go, or—" and he lifted his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... she said. "I shall just have it pointed white and do the doa—I'm not su' how I shall do the doa. Whetha I shall do the doa gold or a vehy, vehy 'itch blue." ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... — N. itching, pruritis [Med.] &c v.; titillation, formication^, aura; stereognosis^. V. itch, tingle, creep, thrill, sting; prick, prickle; tickle, titillate. Adj. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... I never see the fellow but my fingers itch for his throat. I heard some talk that he had won a thousand or so from young Vesey, by this one ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol

... much attention. I feel that there must be members who are all ready to do work, members who would like to jump in and take a hand. I would be very glad to share my work as secretary. I would be glad to hand over the entire work of secretary to some member who feels an itch to get in and ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various

... I'd ever hunted him out and extended the fraternal grip, or him me? Not if everyone else in the world was deaf and dumb and had the itch! We're about as much alike in our tastes and gen'ral run of ideas as Bill Taft and Bill Haywood; about as congenial as our bull terrier and the chow dog next door. Yet here we are, him hailin' me as Shorty, and me callin' him ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... shall go down in Exchange history as a bear day. When I resolve on that, your threats will hardly alter me. This is not that day. The rumor of my attack is absurd. My brokers will be found bracing the market. The next time that you feel an itch to coerce me, regard my answer as given in advance. It is that you ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... Theology," (he exclaims,) "and whose cheeks grow pale over the study of Holy Scripture above all; ye who either fill the venerable office of the Priesthood or intend it, and are hereafter to undertake the awful cure of souls:—rid yourselves of that itch of the present age, the love of novelty. Make it your business to inquire for that which was from the beginning. Resort for counsel to the fountain-head. Have recourse to Antiquity. Return to the holy Fathers. Look back to the primitive Church. In the words of the Prophet,—'Ask ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... districts among the poor and uneducated, where filth and untidiness reign, the "itch" is a very prominent disease. It is caused by the itch mite, a parasite which burrows underneath the skin leaving behind its eggs in little irregularly shaped, bluish tinted ridges. Such a profound itching is set up by this burrowing and depositing of eggs that the child cannot resist scratching, ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... "My hands itch to give them a lesson," rejoined Henry. "But I will be ruled by you. God's death! I will return to-morrow, and hunt them down ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... waiting for him, engine idling, at the curb. He got in, tossing his briefcase and topcoat ahead of him to the far side of the front seat. His back began to itch, insistently, and he rubbed it against the ...
— Double Take • Richard Wilson

... time, the pain had subsided to an over-all smarting itch. He'd have to bear with that until his work was finished and he could enjoy a hot bath. He got another bottle out of the first-aid kit—a flat pint, labeled "Old Overholt," containing a locally-manufactured specific for inward ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper

... will, and you may be looking arter her too? 'Drot my old hat, strannger, but I do itch to git ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... thing indoors to scour, they began on the yard, orchard, barn and road. Mother even had Leon stack the wood pile straighter. She said when corded wood leaned at an angle, it made people seem shiftless; and she never passed a place where it looked that way that her fingers didn't just itch to get at it. He had to pull every ragweed on each side of the road as far as our land reached, and lay every rail straight in the fences. Father had to take spikes and our biggest maul and go to the bridges at the foot of the Big ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... cannot now be known with certainty. Probably enough this may have been one of his motives, which were doubtless of a mixed nature. That he was sincere in his advocacy of Reform must in all fairness be conceded, though his itch for notoriety must always be considered in reviewing and estimating his actions. This tendency of his mind would readily lead him to select journalism as his vocation in life, more especially as he found that his opinions were regarded ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... a sort of Itch," said Mr. Brisher. "We wanted to marry, me and Jane did, and get things settled. But 'E said I 'ad to get a proper position first. Consequently there was a Itch. Consequently, when I went down there, I was anxious to show that I was a good useful sort of chap like. Show I could ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... shortly to see the truth of what he had told me—men licking the hand of riches with the tongue of flattery men so stricken with the itch of vanity that they grovelled for the touch of praise; men even who would do perjury for applause. I do not say that most of the men I saw were of that ilk, but enough to show the tendency of life in a ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... germs on the body by touching some one or something which has them on it. Thus, one may catch venereal diseases, smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, chicken pox, mumps, bolls, body lice, ringworm, barber's itch, dhopie itch, and some other diseases. Wounds are infected in ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... fowl-house, the household things, and everything, in a way that I cannot describe. But I dare not confess to you all my misdeeds, because speaking of them makes my mouth water, and the thing with which God curses me makes me itch dreadfully. If this folly bites and pricks me, and slays my virtue, will God, who has placed this great love in my body, condemn ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... high sp'rited paragons of wit, That fly to fame beyond our earthly pitch, Whose sense is sound, whose words are feat and fit, Able to make the coyest ear to itch; Shroud with your mighty wings that mount so well, These little loves, new crept ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher

... system of the ancients, that kept the world dark so many centuries. It is [Greek] versus Induction. "[Greek]," ladies, is "divination by means of an ass's skull." A pettifogger's skull, however, will serve the turn, provided that pettifogger has been bitten with an insane itch for scribbling about things so infinitely above his capacity as the fine arts. Avoid this sordid dreamer, and follow, in letters as in science, the Baconian method! Then you will find that all uninspired narratives are more or less inexact, and that one, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... Under your mighty ancestors, we Pigs Were bless'd as nightingales on myrtle sprigs, 40 Or grasshoppers that live on noonday dew, And sung, old annals tell, as sweetly too; But now our sties are fallen in, we catch The murrain and the mange, the scab and itch; Sometimes your royal dogs tear down our thatch, 45 And then we seek the shelter of a ditch; Hog-wash or grains, or ruta-baga, none Has yet been ours ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... The following are some of the more common diseases caught by touching the germs: Ringworm, mange, barber's itch, sore eyes, boils, carbuncles, lockjaw, small pox, ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... care to refer to yourself in conversation or to record your own good works, or to itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown—that ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr

... from where he was kneeling. "Ye itch t' make trouble, don't ye?" he charged. "When ye ought t' be thankful that this young woman has found such a good man for a husband. I've watched the Perkins lad pretty close. I've been t' see him, and he's called t' see me. And by ev'ry way that ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... they came down from 35 to 20 miles and Fry could read the marquee of the Fulton Theater. "The Seven Year Itch" ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... him almost frantic, by rubbing his handkerchief which always laid by his side, and with which he was accustomed to wipe his face every five minutes (for he was profuse in his perspiration), with what is called cow-itch: not being aware of what was the cause, he wiped his face more and more, until he was as red as a peony, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... persisted in trying to scratch an itching back on parade. Military discipline, I need not tell you, Major, doesn't take into account the sensitiveness of a recruit's back. It flatly denies such a phenomenon. Now I think I can defy anything in God's quaint universe to make me itch. But that's by the way. I tore the letter up and never answered it. You do these things, sir, when the whole universe seems to be a stumbling-block and an offence. Phyllis was the stumbling-block and the rest of the cosmos was the other thing. That's why I have ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... others of its kind. While these English names retreated from American advertising during the 19th century, vast blocks of space in the ever-larger newspapers were devoted to extolling the merits of Dyott's Patent Itch Ointment, Swaim's Panacea, and Brandreth's Pills. More and more Americans were learning how to read, as free public education spread. Persuaded by the frightening symptoms and the glorious promises, citizens with a bent toward self-dosage flocked to buy the American brands. Druggists and ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen

... this question every prudent tradesman may make for himself: if his pleasure is in his shop, and in his business, there is no danger of him; but if he has an itch after exotic diversions—I mean such as are foreign to his shop, and to his business, and which I therefore call exotic—let him honestly and fairly state the case between his shop and his diversions, and judge impartially for himself. So much pleasure, and no more, may be innocently taken, ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... night, in cold and rain; they will bribe errand-porters, they will make the drivers of hackney-coaches and lackeys tipsy, buy a waiting-maid, suborn a porter. Why? For no reason. A pure passion for seeing, knowing, and penetrating into things. A pure itch for talking. And often these secrets once known, these mysteries made public, these enigmas illuminated by the light of day, bring on catastrophies, duels, failures, the ruin of families, and broken lives, to the great ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... reproduce the nine other paragraphs, it would be a very curious, instructive, and tedious specimen of literature; and, who knows? I might corrupt some immaculate soul, inspire some actor or actress, singer or songstress, with an itch for public self-laudation, a foible from which they are all at present so free. Witness the Era, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... parts of a horse, which he cannot conveniently rub, when they itch, as about the shoulder, which he can neither bite with his teeth, nor scratch with his hind foot; when this part itches, he goes to another horse, and gently bites him in the part which he wishes to be bitten, which is immediately ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... at Mrs Green's, over the way, yesterday towards evening, I took a walk with cousin Sally to see the good folks in Sudbury Street, & found them all well. I had my HEDDUS roll on, aunt Storer said it ought to be made less, Aunt Deming said it ought not to be made at all. It makes my head itch, & ach, & burn like anything Mamma. This famous roll is not made wholly of a red Cow Tail, but is a mixture of that, & horsehair (very course) & a little human hair of yellow hue, that I suppose was taken out of the back part of an old wig. But D—— made it (our head) all carded ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow

... sword in one hand and a torch in the other. It enrages me to see the airs of superiority they give themselves. They scarce seem even to see us as we walk in their streets; and as to the soldiers as they stride along with helmet and shield, my fingers itch to meet them in the forest. No; I promised to walk so far with you, but I go no farther. How long will you ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... midst of its career, and robbed of its chosen object; and what is painful is to have an organ lacerated or destroyed when it is still vigorous, and not ready for its natural sleep and dissolution. We must not confuse the itch which our unsatisfied instincts continue to cause with the pleasure of satisfying and dismissing each of them in turn. Could they all be satisfied harmoniously we should be satisfied once for all and completely. Then doing and ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana

... Spaniard says, "of the decadence of contemporary literature is found, to my thinking, in the vice which has been very graphically called effectism, or the itch of awaking at all cost in the reader vivid and violent emotions, which shall do credit to the invention and originality of the writer. This vice has its roots in human nature itself, and more particularly in that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... notes I have suggested the principal strong points of the Prussian character. A failure in honour which almost amounts to a failure in memory: an egomania that is honestly blind to the fact that the other party is an ego; and, above all, an actual itch for tyranny and interference, the devil which everywhere torments the idle and the proud. To these must be added a certain mental shapelessness which can expand or contract without reference to ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton

... seen cowards turn pale, but never the colour washed from a brave man's face. The sight made my fingers itch ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... island bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would they let me—since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... What a happiness to see that you are drawing. Yes, do this for us both. If you knew how I itch to express in paint all our emotions! If you have read my letters of all this time you will know my ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous

... Sir Jamie Graham—prig; What was thy delighted musing? Now accepting, now refusing, Till on the Admiralty pitch'd, Still would that thought his speech prolong; To gain the place for which he long had itch'd, He call'd on Bobby still through all the song; But ever as his sweetest theme he chose, A sovereign's golden chink was heard at every close, And Pollock grimly smiled, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various

... climbing plant of the West Indies and other warm climates. It is called the cowage, or cow-itch, on account of the seed pods being covered with short brittle hairs, the points of which are finely serrated, causing an unbearable itching when applied to the skin, which is relieved by rubbing the part with oil. It is employed as a vermifuge. In East Africa it is called Kitedzi. The sea beans ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders

... long since bloomless and now brown with autumn—and I paced its gravelled paths up and down, at the same time favoring Mr. Beasley's house with a covert study that would have done credit to a porch-climber, for the sting of my blunder at the table was quiescent, or at least neutralized, under the itch of a curiosity far from satisfied concerning the interesting premises next door. The gentleman in the dressing-gown, I was sure, could have been no other than the Honorable David Beasley himself. He came not in eyeshot now, neither he nor ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington

... common habit is the one so frequently heard,—a little laugh when there is no feeling of merriment and no occasion for it.) Motor activity discharges tension and is pleasurable and these tics furnish a momentary pleasure; they relieve a feeling that some of the victims compare to an itch and the habit thus is based on a seeking of relief, even though that relief is obtained in a way that distresses the more settled purposes of ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... has but one failing," said he, "an itch for horse-dealing; but for that he might be a much richer man than he is; he is continually buying and exchanging horses, and generally finds himself a loser by his bargains: but he is a worthy creature, and skilful in his profession—it ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... laugh, the young man said, "It makes my fingers fairly itch for my palette and brushes—though it's not at all ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... defeat and in darkness. All creatures wish to live, and to perpetuate their species, of course; but those two wishes alone evidently do not carry any race far. In addition to these, a race, to be great, needs some hunger, some itch, to spur it up the hard path we lately have learned to call evolution. The love of toil in the ants, and of craft in cats, are examples (imaginary or not). What other such lust could exert ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day

... itch and he saw that he was near an ant hill. Then the cactus at his right boomed out mournfully and a hole appeared in it. He fired at the smoke and a yell informed him that he had made a hit. "Go 'way!" he complained as a green fly buzzed past his nose. Then he scratched ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... went abroad to loiter. While there he exposed himself to the sculptor's art; but it didn't take very hard. However, Virgie came back and acquired the studio habit. And you can't live for long in a studio, you know, without getting the itch to see yourself in print. That's what brought Virgie to me. And now! Well, now I have to ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... to Texas, to Europe, and to every spot of the earth where a villain may hope to find refuge from justice, can at all doubt that they are most distressingly affected in their heels with a species of running itch? It seems that this malady of their heels operates on the sound-headed and honest-hearted creatures, very much as the cork leg in the comic song did on its owner, which, when he once got started on it, the more he tried to stop it ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... course, Bruno was unable to comprehend just what was being said, thanks to his complete ignorance of the language employed; but he felt morally certain that ugly threats were passing through those thin lips, and even so soon his hands began to itch and his blood to glow, both ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... harmonious by laughing at the matter of the quarrel. Let him handle books, but not cards. [110] Let him [not] direct the Indians in the government of his village, but let him leave them to those who govern them; for the wish to command is a sort of itch in Filipinas. Consequently, let him leave to each one the care of what God has given him. Let him check sins, but not lawful games and amusements, since thereby other and illicit amusements will be prevented. Let him eradicate drunkenness, but not prohibit all ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... little itch of fear for the ore-mad people, "legal forms are being put to fearful strains, are they not, with all this ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... 'tis when a man will be ignorantly officious, do services, and not know his why; I wonder what courteous itch possest you. You never did absurder part in your life, nor a greater ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... of sheets! Then, the river of throbbing fire that was his blood, seemed to move again. And the dull ache, deep in the bones, possessed his nerves. In his breast there began a vibrating, as if thousands of tiny bubbles were being pricked to bursting in his lungs. And the itch to cough came back to his throat. And all his flesh seemed in contention with a slowly ebbing force. Sleep might come perhaps after pain had lulled. His heart beat unsteadily and weakly, sometimes with a strange little flutter. How many weary interminable hours had he endured! But to-night he ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... (yarl-dakko), the white crane, the eagle, a kind of water-mole (nee-witke), two kinds of turtle (rinka and tung-kanka), the musk-duck, the native dog, the large grub dug out of the ground (ronk), a vegetable food called war-itch (being that the emu feeds upon), the native companion, bandicoot, old male opossum, wallabie (linkara), coote, two fishes (toor-rue and ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... this Countrey is subject to. Every one a Physician to himself. To Purge: To Vomit. To heal Sores. To heal an Impostume. For an hurt in the Eye. To cure the Itch. The Candle for Lying-in Women. Goraca, a Fruit. Excellent at the Cure of Poyson. They easily heal the biting of Serpents by Herbs, And Charms. But not good at healing inward Distempers. They both bury and burn their Dead. ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... abates fever and thirst, it cleanses the throat and tongue of mucus, and is peculiarly efficacious in scarlet fever; as soon as the fever is abated it gives an appetite. My belief is that the sulphuric acid in the mixture is a specific in scarlet fever, as much as quinine is in ague, and sulphur in itch. I have reason to say so, for, in numerous cases I have seen its ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... storm roared on, never ceasing, it stirred the Dragon's blood in Kan Wong's veins. The pick and shovel irked his hands as he swung them; his palms began to itch for the weapons that the soldiers bore. Now and then he came upon a gun where it had dropped from its owner's useless hands. He studied its mechanism, even asking the Foreign Devil overseer how it ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... carriage violently, carefully hiding the book Pamela had been reading and putting the cushion on the rack. Finally, tucking the travelling-rug firmly round her mistress, she remarked pleasantly, "A h'eight hours' journey without an 'itch!" ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... not remember that I ever had the itch, and yet scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and so much at hand; but repentance follows too near. I use it most in my ears, which are ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... at first sight. My plan is to marry her and get her farther to the interior, away from the border. It may not be easy. She's watched. So am I. It was impossible to see her without the women of this house knowing. At first, perhaps, they had only curiosity—an itch to gossip. But the last two days there has been a change. Since last night there's some powerful influence at work. Oh, these Mexicans are subtle, mysterious! After all, they are Spaniards. They work in secret, in the dark. They are ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... Itch of going my self. [Aside.] —Madam, if I thought your Brother might not know it, and I might wait on you, for by my troth I'll ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... wield a weapon," he rejoined, "and he will itch to use it." I think we were both a little sententious because of the approach of the train. "Your argument is, I suppose, that the country is ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... concertina, but he can't play on it; winter coming on and no overcoat; he can't wear the concertina any more than he can tootle it. A few blocks away is a fellow, Mr. B. He can play a concertina something grand, but he hasn't got one and his fingers itch. He spends all his ready money on a brand-new overcoat, and just then his aunt sends him another one. He thinks he'll just swap one of them overcoats for a concertina. So he advertises in an exchange column. About ...
— Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas • Rupert Hughes

... mending the matter—that's curing the itch by scratching the skin off. I could not give your tall fellows less than a crown a-piece, and I could buy off the bloodiest Mohawk in the kingdom, if he's a Whig, for half that sum. But, thank ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... earth. And thy carcase shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away. The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, the scab and the itch, with madness and blindness, that thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness. Thou shalt not prosper in thy ways, and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg

... say I'd quit working," said E. Eliot. "I said I'd quit business. That's another thing. There's plenty of real work in the world that won't earn you a living. Lord! Don't I see it going by right here in this office! There are things I just itch to get my hands into, and I have to wait and tell myself 'some day, perhaps!' There's a thing I'd like to do now, and that's to take a hand in this political campaign for district attorney. It would ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... Thirteen ... I can feel my hand returning to normal. Fourteen ... The tingling feeling has left. Fifteen ... My right hand feels perfectly normal." You could try a variation of this test by saying your nose or one of your toes will itch at a specific count. Once this test is accomplished, you are ready for ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers

... crown to three or four shillings. The goodwife was fond of it because her betters made use of tea; a pound of it would last her a month, which made her breakfast very cheap, so she made no account of the sugar which she took up only in ounces. In short, the itch spread; the refuse of the vilest teas were run into this country from Holland, sold and bought at the prices I have mentioned; and at present there are very few cobblers in any of the burghs of this country who do not sit down gravely with their wives and families to tea.'[Footnote: Culloden ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers



Words linked to "Itch" :   tickle, smart, ache, infection, cutaneous sensation, desire, hurt, prickle, dhobi itch, vellicate, skin sensation, pruritus, tingle, barber's itch, haptic sensation, want, titillate, irritate



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