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Peck   /pɛk/   Listen
Peck

noun
1.
(often followed by 'of') a large number or amount or extent.  Synonyms: batch, deal, flock, good deal, great deal, hatful, heap, lot, mass, mess, mickle, mint, mountain, muckle, passel, pile, plenty, pot, quite a little, raft, sight, slew, spate, stack, tidy sum, wad.  "A deal of trouble" , "A lot of money" , "He made a mint on the stock market" , "See the rest of the winners in our huge passel of photos" , "It must have cost plenty" , "A slew of journalists" , "A wad of money"
2.
A British imperial capacity measure (liquid or dry) equal to 2 gallons.
3.
A United States dry measure equal to 8 quarts or 537.605 cubic inches.



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"Peck" Quotes from Famous Books



... parrot had been our chief sources of amusement. The two creatures had become great friends, though Quacko now and then showed an inclination to pick the feathers out of his companion's back; but when he made the attempt, she resented it by a severe peck on his head—and one day caught the tip of his tail, and gave it a bite which was calculated to teach him not to behave in the same manner again. Whenever we asked Kallolo to try and catch us some more pets, he invariably replied, "Wait till I can make my blowpipe ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston

... them from these pests. In the low country the same acceptable office is performed by the "cattle-keeper heron" (Ardea bubulcus), which is "sure to be found in attendance on them while grazing; and the animals seem to know their benefactors, and stand quietly, while the birds peck their tormentors from their flanks."—Mag. ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... the rooster, who was a regular old "Blue Beard;" and she knew very well that he wouldn't scratch her up another worm, for a good twelve-month, for being absent without leave. So she dug her claws into Hal's side, every now and then, and tried to peck him with her bill, but Hal told her it was no use, for go into that creek ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern

... come whistling through my hall; Come bounding and surrounding me, Come buffeting, astounding me, Nipping and clipping through my wraps and all. I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows His nose to Russian snows To be pecked at by every wind that blows? 20 You would not peck? I thank you for good will, Believe, but leave that truth ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... exceeds his brains, be ashamed of his cane and kid gloves; but never let a man who works be ashamed of his hard hands. There is an old proverb which says, "Mere gentility sent to market, won't buy a peck ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... was not dead. It let her put her hand round it and draw it in, and to her delight she felt that it was soft and warm, and it even gave a gentle peck on ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... spread, and dinner served up just as the king had given these orders, as soon as the dishes were placed, the bird, clapping his wings, leaped off the king's hand, flew upon the table, where he began to peck the bread and victuals, sometimes on one plate and sometimes on another. The king was so surprised that he immediately sent the officer of the eunuchs to desire the queen to come and see this wonder. The officer related it to her majesty, and she came forthwith; but she no sooner saw the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.

... tryin' to start my garden this spring. As fur back as the time I was gittin' the seed in, them hens of Widder Sidene Pike, that lives next farm to mine, began their hellishness, with that old wart-legged ostrich of a rooster of her'n to lead 'em. They'd almost peck the seeds out of my hand, and the minit I'd turn my back they was over into that patch, right foot, left foot, kick heel and toe, and swing to pardners—and you couldn't see the sun for dirt. And at every rake that rooster lifts soil enough to ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... the influence of his poetry may be considered good. (We of course say nothing here of the volume called the "Merry Muses," still extant to disgrace his memory.) It is doubtful if his "Willie brew'd a peck o' Maut" ever made a drunkard, but it is certain that his "Cottar's Saturday Night" has converted sinners, edified the godly, and made some erect family altars. It has been worth a thousand homilies. And, taking his songs as a whole, they have done much to stir the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... penetrating study, 'Mark Twain a Century Hence', published at the time of Mr. Clemens' death, Professor H. T. Peck makes this observation: "We must judge Mark Twain as a humorist by the very best of all he wrote rather than by the more dubious productions, in which we fail to see at every moment the winning qualities and the characteristic form of this very interesting American. As one would not judge of Tennyson ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson

... the pines, and through the tall, dry grass, The fitful breezes with a shiver pass, While o'er the autumn's lately flowering weeds The snow-birds flit and peck the shelling seeds. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... Quimbo, throwing down a coarse bag, which contained a peck of corn; "thar, nigger, grab, take car on 't,—yo won't get no ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... of the potato occurs in the household book of the Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth. From Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh we learn that the price in 1701 was half-a-crown a peck. Robertson, of Irvine discovered what he thought the earliest evidence of potatoes in Scotland in the household book of the Eglinton family. The date of this entry, however, was 1733, and Robert Chambers showed that the date in the Buccleuch book ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... kind of downy hair. I can hardly express how pleased I was to see him. I tell you, Robinson Crusoe don't make near enough of his loneliness. But here was interesting company. He looked at me and winked his eye from the front backwards, like a hen, and gave a chirp and began to peck about at once, as though being hatched three hundred years too late was just nothing. 'Glad to see you, Man Friday!' says I, for I had naturally settled he was to be called Man Friday if ever he was hatched, as soon as ever I found the egg in the canoe had developed. I was a bit anxious ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... unprincipled, and revengeful man, whose occupation seldom called him to his plantation; while the latter was notorious as a hard master and a cruel tyrant, who exacted a larger amount of labour from his negroes than his fellow planters, and gave them less to eat. His opinion was, that a peck of corn a week was quite enough for a negro; and this was his systematic allowance;—but he otherwise tempted the appetites of his property, by driving them, famished, to the utmost verge of necessity. Thus driven to predatory acts in order to sustain ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... on the cheapest scale. No dinner. The estimate is called 150,000l. All your members were present yesterday, and if we had voted against the Government, only see how we would have diminished their numbers.—Mr. Chard is in a peck of troubles. He has not got the address, without which it is useless to go to the Levee.—I was glad of Brougham's mention of Lady Grenville's pension (it certainly was not an attack), because it produced an authorized declaration of its surrender, which ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... none of our business just now. It may be honest enough, and we'd get into a peck of trouble if we peeked. So let's just chuck it in some hollow stump as we go along, and muffle our trail behind us so he can't find where we put it. Later on I think I know some one who will be glad to look into what ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... Take a peck of balm leaves, put them in a tub or large pot, heat four gallons of water scalding hot, ready to boil, then pour it upon the leaves, so let it stand all night, then strain them thro' a hair-sieve; put to every ...
— English Housewifery Exemplified - In above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions - for most Parts of Cookery • Elizabeth Moxon

... me out, somebody!" wailed poor Bud, who managed to receive a full peck of ashes over his head as he ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... wild woodland neighbors made us some trouble. It was no other than a veritable woodchuck, whose hole we had often wondered at when we were scrambling through the underbrush after spring flowers. The hole was about the size of a peck-measure, and had two openings about six feet apart. The occupant was a gentleman we never had had the pleasure of seeing; but we soon learned his existence from his ravages in our garden. He had a taste, it ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... 3. TUBULINA CAESPITOSA, Peck. Sporangia short-cylindric, closely crowded, distinct or connate, argillaceous olive to olive-brown in color, seated on a well-developed hypothallus; the wall a thin membrane, with a dense layer of minute dark-colored round granules on the inner surface. Spores argillaceous olive in the mass, ...
— The Myxomycetes of the Miami Valley, Ohio • A. P. Morgan

... distributions of corn which were frequently made to the people, either gratuitously, or at a very low price. This corn was brought from the conquered provinces, of which several, instead of taxes, were obliged to furnish a tenth part of their produce at a stated price, about sixpence a-peck, to the republic. The low price at which this corn was distributed to the people, must necessarily have sunk the price of what could be brought to the Roman market from Latium, or the ancient territory of Rome, and must ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... she said when I came up on the porch. She shook my hand as limply as always, and gave me a reluctant duty peck on the cheek, then backed into the house to give me room ...
— The Gallery • Roger Phillips Graham

... window-blind; And yonder shining thing's a star, Blue eyes,—you seem ten times as far. That, Fragoletta, is a bird That speaks, yet never says a word; Upon a cherry-tree it sings, Simple as all mysterious things; Its little life to peck and pipe As long as cherries ripe and ripe, And minister unto the need Of baby-birds that feed and feed. This, Fragoletta, is a flower, Open and fragrant for an hour, A flower, a transitory thing, Each petal fleeting as a wing, All a May morning blows and blows, ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne

... morning. Several girls had given her their addresses and asked her to write to them, Miss Bowes had been kindness itself, and even Miss Teddington, whose conduct was generally of a Spartan order, when bidding her good-bye in the study, had actually bestowed an abrupt peck of a kiss, a mark of favour never before known in the annals of the school. To be sure, she had followed it with a warning against relapsing into loud laughter in other people's houses; but ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... running across the lawn to meet his father, seizing him warmly by the hand, and having administered a dutiful peck to his aunt, turned to introduce the little group of strangers who ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... the cob to the livery-stables thus indicated, and waited to see him walked about to cool, well rubbed down, and made comfortable over half a peck of oats,—for Kenelm Chillingly was a humane man to the brute creation,—and then, in a state of ravenous appetite, returned to the Temperance Hotel, and was ushered into a small drawing-room, with a small bit of carpet in the centre, six small chairs ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to the people of the insolence of the tribunes, and taxing them with having caused the corruption of the auspices and other rites of religion, is made to say, "And now they would strip even religion of its authority. For what matters it, they will tell you, that the fowls refuse to peck, or come slowly from the coop, or that a cock has crowed? These are small matters doubtless; but it was by not contemning such small matters as these, that our forefathers built up this great republic." And, indeed, in these ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... street car five cents, or two pence halfpenny. They run along the different avenues, taking the length of the city. In the upper or new part of the town their course is simple enough, but as they descend to the Bowery, Peck Slip, and Pearl Street, nothing can be conceived more difficult or devious than their courses. The Broadway omnibus, on the other hand, is a straightforward, honest vehicle in the lower part of the town, becoming, however, dangerous and miscellaneous when it ascends to Union Square and the vicinities ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... clam shells; place in kettle; add water, allowing 1/2 cup water for each peck of clams. Cover kettle and cook until shells open. Serve hot with the following sauce: 3 tablespoons Crisco, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 4 tablespoons chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil

... liable, in cases of reasonable doubt. Pitt v. Yalden, 4 Burrows, 2060. He shall be protected, when he acts with good faith, and to the best of his skill and knowledge. Gilbert v. Williams, 8 Mass. 57. The want of ordinary care and skill in such a person is gross negligence. Holmes v. Peck, 1 Rhode Island, Rep. 245; Cox v. Sullivan, 7 Georgia, 144; Pennington v. Yell, 6 Engl. 212. As between the client and the attorney, the responsibility of the latter is as great and as strict here as in any country when want ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood

... about it. He went to see Mr. Bliss. Mr. Bliss was one of the owners of the paper. Horace found him working in his garden. Mr. Bliss looked up. He saw a big boy coming toward him. The boy had on a white felt hat with a narrow brim. It looked like a half-peck measure. His hair was white. His trousers were too short for him. All his clothes were coarse and poor. He was such a strange-looking boy, that Mr. ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston

... of the Wren family were arriving from all directions. They didn't hesitate to call Miss Kitty Cat names. And some of them even darted quite near her, as if they meant to peck her eyes out. ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... place. There is no encouragement for a boy here. Well, good morning. If Pa comes in here asking for me tell him that you saw an express wagon going to the morgue with the remains of a pretty boy who acted as though he died from concussion of a bed slat on Peck's bad boy on the pistol pocket. That will make Pa feel sorry. O, he has got the awfulest cold, though." And the boy limped out to separate a couple of dogs ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck

... as heart can wish. A peck o' trouble, by the looks of it. Chris Blanchard be gone—vanished like a dream! Mother Blanchard called her this marnin', an' found her bed not so much as creased. She've flown, an' there's a braave upstore 'bout it, for every Blanchard's wrong in the head more or less, beggin' ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... onpopular man in Illinoy to-day. His conduct is as hard to swaller as a dose of them old Greek twins, Castor Oil and Politics, we use to wrastle with at school. Of course in political life, like in ordinary life, you have to eat a peck o' dirt before you die, but you don't have to eat it all at oncst like he's a doin'! Why, old war-horses, Republicans all their lives, were turned down for this here upstart! It's done the party a deal of harm. And then, as I said before, Sam Thorne's confounded airs is making everybody ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... The hens peck the cock. They must be keeping Lent, or perhaps the virtuous widows don't care for their ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... hurry to the grizzled mender of roads, already at work on the hill-top beyond the village, with his day's dinner (not much to carry) lying in a bundle that it was worth no crow's while to peck at, on a heap of stones? Had the birds, carrying some grains of it to a distance, dropped one over him as they sow chance seeds? Whether or no, the mender of roads ran, on the sultry morning, as if for his life, down the hill, knee-high ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... followers in the wilderness. Quoth one, 'My husband hath travelled as far as Plymouth (which is near forty miles), and hath with great toil brought a little corn home with him, and before that is spent the Lord will assuredly provide.' Quoth the other, 'Our last peck of meal is now in the oven at home a-baking, and many of our godly neighbors have quite spent all, and we owe one loaf of that little we have.' Then spake a third, 'My husband hath ventured himself among the Indians for ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... hundreds of the like mistakes in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... will hold him," said Dennet. "Ah! 'tis pity, the beauteous green gold-bedropped wing—that no armour of thine can equal, Stephen, not even that for the little King of Scots. But shouldst not be so silly a bird, Goldie, even though thou hast thine excuse. There! Peck not, ill birdling. Know ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... this afternoon and picked nearly a peck of blackberries. Berries of various kinds are very abundant. The fox-grape is also found in great plenty, and ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... me— Lord, how he did scare me, how he kept grinding his teeth! In he came and tugged down the meat, rack and all—grabbed a knife and lopped the choice bits off three necks of pork—and smashed every pot and tureen that didn't hold a peck or more! ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... aediles, Lucius Valerius Flaccus, and Lucius Quintius Flaminius, and repeated for two days; and a vast quantity of corn, which Scipio had sent from Africa, was distributed by them to the people, with strict impartiality and general satisfaction, at the rate of four asses a peck. The plebeian games were thrice repeated entire by the plebeian aediles, Lucius Apustius Fullo, and Quintus Minucius Rufus; the latter of whom was, from the aedileship, elected praetor. There was also a feast of Jove on occasion of ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... with a view to preventing food or reinforcements arriving to his enemy from the sea. Ravenna was closed upon all sides and before the end of the siege corn rose in the beleaguered city to famine price, some seventy-two shillings of our money per peck, and the inhabitants were forced to eat the skins of animals and all sorts of offal, and ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... when those mellow notes are still, It hops from off its choral perch, O'er path and sward, with busy bill, All grateful gifts to peck and search. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Day, and gets his quietus." Whatever we say against them, however, lacks the great essential—truth, and that is why we go on saying, thinking we shall come to it at last. We show more malice than matter. Birds ever peck at the fairest fruit; nay, cast it to the ground, and a man picks it up, tastes it, and says how good is it. He enjoys all good in a good wife, and yet too often complains. He rides a fast mare home to a smiling wife, pats them ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... snail-water for a consumption. Take half a peck of Shell-snails, wipe them and bruise them Shells and all in a Mortar; put to them a gallon of New Milk; as also Balm, Mint, Carduus, unset Hyssop, and Burrage, of each one handful; Raisons of the Sun stoned, Figs, and ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... time, which was impossible for her. Professor Potter was the unanimous choice of the convention, and, after communicating with the university and securing a leave of absense for two years, she accepted the office. Her assistant and friend, Professor Mary Gray Peck, accepted the office of headquarters secretary. Both were prominent in the College Suffrage League in that State. The convention by a rising vote expressed its appreciation of the excellent work Miss Gordon had done, "and for the still greater work that ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... with iron missiles, and asked where he was going, replied, "To die on my threshold"; Watkins, of Baltimore; Frederick Hinton, with his polished eloquence; James Forten, the merchant prince; William Whipper, just essaying his youthful powers; Lewis Woodson and John Peck, of Pittsburg; Austin Steward, then of Rochester; Samuel E. Cornish, who had the distinguished honor of reasoning Gerrit Smith out of colonization, and of telling Henry Clay that he would never be president ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... this new attack—equally unexpected as the peck in the eye—the fierce panda showed no signs of yielding without a struggle; and, although far overmatched by its canine antagonist, it was likely to give the latter a scratch or two, as souvenirs that he would carry to ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... could think, the floating corpses were within their serrated jaws. In another moment the bodies rose again to the surface outside the sail and wreck; then another dash from the monsters, and a greedy dive and peck from the birds; a few bubbles and shreds of black threads, and that was the last of those wretches until the sea ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... streamed slowly out to mingle with the multitudes gathered before the great Entrance where Queen Anne in crown and scepter keeps majestic guard, and where in peaceful days doves flit and flutter down to peck at the grain ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... horribly—such was her attraction. His birds also, a jackdaw and an owl, who had the run of the studio, tolerated her as they tolerated no other female, save the housekeeper. The jackdaw would perch on her and peck her dress; but the owl merely engaged her in combats of mesmeric gazing, which never ended in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... your wings and surround them on all sides. Woe to them! let us get to work with our beaks, let us devour them. Nothing can save them from our wrath, neither the mountain forests, nor the clouds that float in the sky, nor the foaming deep. Come, peck, tear to ribbons. Where is the chief of the cohort? Let him engage the ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes

... concluded, he was at once commissioned as Brigade Surgeon of U. S. Volunteers, and soon after promoted to the rank of Medical Director, serving as such on the staffs, successively, of Generale Stone, Casey, Sedgwick, and Peck. His army service was marked by the same strong individuality, the same resolute activity, the same executive talent, which we have seen stamped upon the boy and the youth. Added to all those other qualities, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... Top, shine on! Across the realms of space Shine on! What though I'm in a sorry case? What though my collar is a wreck, And hangs a rag about my neck? What though at food I can but peck? ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor

... horse, for the twenty-four hours. His steam mill in London consumes one hundred and twenty bushels of coal in twenty-four hours, turns ten pair of stones, which grind eight bushels of flour an hour each, which is nineteen hundred and twenty bushels in the twenty-four hours. This makes a peck and a half of coal perform exactly as much as a horse, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... other politicians joined the hue and cry. An old friend of Lincoln's, Ebenezer Peck, came east from Illinois to work upon him against Blair.(3) Chandler, who like Wade was eager to get out of the wrong ship, appeared at Washington as a friend of the Administration and an enemy of Blair.(4) But still Lincoln did not respond. ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... enable young insectivorous birds to distinguish all the species of one kind from all those of the other. There is also some evidence to show that animals do learn by experience what to eat and what to avoid. Mr. Poulton was assured by Rev. G.J. Bursch that very young chickens peck at insects which they afterwards avoid. Lizards, too, often seized larvae which they were unable to ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... fool boy wuzn't in a peck uv trubble! There he stood in the middle uv that hot—that all-fired hot—peraroor with his arms full uv eggs. What wuz there fur him to do? He wuz afraid to move, lest he should break them eggs; yet the longer he stood there the less chance there ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field

... from the long table, scoured as white as snow, but puts no linen on it. On the buttery-shelves, a set of pewter rivals silver in brightness, but Dorcas does not touch them. She places a brown rye-and-Indian loaf, of the size of a half-peck, in the centre of the table,—a pan of milk, with the cream stirred in,—brown earthen bowls, with bright pewter spoons by the dozen,—a delicious cheese, whole, and the table is ready. When Dinah appears, with her bright Madras turban, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... any remarkable accident, was practised for about three months, when on a sudden the book-keeper vanished, and for three weeks' time Alice heard not a word of him. This threw both the sisters into a heavy peck of troubles, and the more because he had always kept it a secret in whose family he lived and went to the people where Alice lodged by another name than his own. However they got money enough by sparks they picked up to live pretty easily together, and that no misfortune might go too near ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... at him and endeavoured to peck his eyes. Captain Morgan resisted, and after a desperate struggle succeeded in driving it to a sofa in the corner of the room, where it settled down and regarded him with great fear in its eyes. Determined to destroy ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... coast of the Chukchian Peninsula, where they have become partly assimilated in dress and language to the local Chukches.[562] The same conditions also facilitated the passage of a few Chukches across Bering Strait to the Alaskan side. At Pak (or Peck) on East Cape and on Diomed Island, situated in the narrowest part of Bering Strait, are the great intercontinental markets of the polar tribes. Here American furs have for many decades been exchanged for ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... being but six inches thick, and the ribs so much decayed that it declined visibly.... I hope to see the saint fixed upon a firmer basis before the Winter." On the top of a turret opposite St. Hugh is the statue of the Swineherd of Stowe. This personage became famous through contributing a peck of silver pennies toward the building of the cathedral. As is usually the case, the saint and the donor therefore occupy positions of equal exaltation! The swineherd is equipped with a winding horn. A foolish tradition without foundation maintains that this figure does not represent the Swineherd ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... here!" he called. "Thank God we are getting out of this city! Good-by, Miss Sparrow, don't peck me, and come and see us at Crab's Bay. March, Lily. A riverderci, Signora Corriani. Come, dearest." He bustled them all out, seized two suitcases in one hand and Mary's elbow in the other, chattered his ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... out ahead. There was no fairness in their positions; Hortense had Eliza in a cage, penned in by every fact; but it doesn't do to go too near some birds, even when they're caged, and, while these two birds had been giving their sweet manifestations of song, Eliza had driven a peck or two home through the bars, which, though they did not draw visible blood, as I have said, probably taught Hortense that a Newport education is not the only instruction which fits you for drawing-room war to ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... a Peck or more of Peas, and malt them with five Quarters of Barley, and they'll greatly mellow the Drink, and so will Beans; but they won't come so soon, nor mix so conveniently with the Malt, ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous

... and away Balzac's greatest and most passionate love, the present writer cannot agree with the late Professor Harry Thurston Peck in the following dictum: "It was his first real love, and it was her last; and, therefore, their association realized the very characteristic aphorism which Balzac wrote in a letter to her after he had known her but a few short weeks: 'It is only the last love of a woman that ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd

... tree"—Isabel's ideas were becoming slightly confused—"it would be natural for her to be melancholy—only if she were a bird she wouldn't care, she would fly off with some one else and leave Major Clowes, and all the other birds would come and peck him to death. They manage these things better in bird land." Isabel's eyes shut but she hurriedly opened them again. "I'm not going to go to sleep. It's perfectly absurd. It can't be much after nine o'clock. I dare say Captain Hyde will come out before so ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... their way in silence. It was one of those cold, but calm, bright days in winter, when the very air seems filled with silent ripples of gladness; when the sunshine rests like a glory on the leafless trees, and bright-eyed robins chirp and peck the moss, as they hop from bough to bough; when the light of heaven is so over all, that even the dun-colored earth, the decayed leaves and rotten branches, which the autumn blast has laid low, look beautiful, and seem to whisper ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... disposed at equal distances, while he walks majestically in the rear. They advance rapidly, picking right and left, with military precision, killing the foe and disposing of the dead bodies with the same peck. Nobody has yet discovered how many grasshoppers a turkey will hold; but he is very much like a boy at a Thanksgiving dinner,—he keeps on eating as long as the supplies last. The gobbler, in one of these raids, does not condescend to grab a single grasshopper,—at least, not while ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... fowls, who appeared especially proud of their new friend. The kitten, discovering this, assumed the post of leader, and used to conduct them about the grounds, amusing itself at their expense. Sometimes it would catch hold of their feet, as if going to bite them, when they would peck at it in return. At others it would hide behind a bush, and then springing out into their midst, purr and rub itself against their sides. One pullet was its especial favourite; it accompanied her every day to her nest under the boards of an out-house, and would ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... consider the incredible number of little mouths, and the busy rate at which they ply them hour by hour, you may imagine what an immense number of grains of wheat must have escaped man's hand, for you must remember that every time they peck they take a whole grain. Down, too, come the grey-blue wood-pigeons and the wild turtle-doves. The singing linnets come in parties, the happy greenfinches, the streaked yellow-hammers, as if any one had delicately painted them in separate ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... but none have much endeavoured to enforce or ascertain them. Mr. Voltaire[2] tells us, without proof, that the first hint of Paradise Lost was taken from a farce called Adamo, written by a player; Dr. Pearce[3], that it was derived from an Italian tragedy, called Il Paradiso Perso; and Mr. Peck[4], that it was borrowed from a wild romance. Any of these conjectures may possibly be true, but, as they stand without sufficient proof, it must be granted, likewise, that they may all possibly be ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... breakfast. If there is a Robin's or Dove's nest at hand, they think it is foolish to look further, and help themselves to fresh eggs or squabs. This makes us very angry, and we have the great Crow's nest—a peck or two of sticks, lined with the bark of cedars and grape vines—pulled from the tree-top where the crafty ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

... expect she'll raise a single chick; and there's Gray Cock flirting about fine as ever. Folks didn't do so when I was young. I'm sure my husband knew what treatment a setting hen ought to have—poor old Long Spur—he never minded a peck or so now and then. I must say these modern fowls a'n't what fowls ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... territorial claims. Such, for example, is the question concerning the antiquity of Vincennes, a controversy founded on the mistake noticed in the text. Vide Western Annals. 2d Ed. Revised by J. M. Peck. ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... Bet Harramount, and on the surface of God's earth, blessed be his name! there was nothin' undher a bonnet and petticoats so ugly. She was pitted wid the small-pox to that degree that you might hide half a peck of marrowfat paise (peas) in her face widout their being noticed; then the sanies (seams) that ran across it were five-foot raspers, every one of them. She had one of the purtiest gooseberry eyes in Europe; and only for ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... throne for twenty years (999-1019). In it the Emperor Romanus Argyrus (1028-1034) confined Prussianus, a relative of the Bulgarian royal family, on a charge of treason;[446] and there Michael VII., nicknamed Parapinakes (the peck-filcher), because he sold wheat at one-fourth of its proper weight, and then at an exorbitant price, ultimately retired after his deposition.[447] The connection of so many prominent persons with the monastery implies the importance of ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... the property of the brethren who would not join him in the march; and on a Sunday he advised the people that they might at times take property which at other times it would be wrong to take, citing David's eating of the shew bread, and the Saviour's plucking ears of corn.* Reed Peck testified to the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... one ever got a chance to stay abed more than his eight hours while Polynesia was around. She used to watch the ship's clock; and if you overslept a half-minute, she would come down to the cabin and peck you gently on the nose till ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... fearless blue-jay alighted on the bank and made a prospecting peck at the tobacco pouch. It yielded in favor of a gopher, who endeavored to draw it toward his hole, but in turn gave way to a red squirrel, whose attention was divided, however, between the pouch and the revolver, which he regarded with mischievous fascination. Then there was a splash, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... lakelet, nearly two miles in circumference and fifty feet deep, and encircled by a dense forest. Its deep, sluggish outlet into the Hudson is now Canal Street. In wet weather there was another water communication with the East River, near Peck Slip, cutting off the lower part of the island, leaving another island, containing some eight hundred acres. Through Broad Street, along which now rolls each day the stream of business, and swells the tumult of the Brokers' Board, then swept a deep stream, up ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... I'll be your Beatrix: I'll go instead of her, and counterfeit your waiting-woman; in the dark I may easily pass for her. By this means I shall be present to instruct you, for you are yet a callow maid: I must teach you to peck a little; you may come to prey ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... ii., p. 358.).—Your correspondent asks, Who was Salgado? and his question has not yet, I believe, been answered. James Salgado, whose name does not appear in any biographical dictionary, though it deserves to do, and whose pieces are unnoticed in Peck's Catalogue, though they should certainly not have been omitted, was a Spanish priest, who renounced the Roman Catholic belief, and was imprisoned by the Inquisition, and after undergoing many sufferings made his escape to England in the latter part of the reign of Charles II. His history ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various

... bluejay. As soon as he sees your eye upon him, he hops a little nearer; not too near, however, either to mislead you or to put himself in your hands, but just near enough to tempt you to try to tempt him. You hold out a nut, and then, with a quick dart and a sharp peck with a bill trained to certain and sure work, your thumb and finger lose that which they held, and Mr. Bluejay is eating it in perfect security well beyond your reach. Oh, he is a fascinating creature is this bunch of beautiful blue feathers decorating the harshest voice of all birddom ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... ten cents a day. They would allowance you so many pounds of meat, so much meal, so much molasses. I have worked all day for ten cents and then gone out at night to get a few potatoes. I have pulled potatoes all day for a peck of meal and I was happy at that. I never did know what the price of ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... when our crops are full, but when we are starving, it is a wonder that we can hold our heads up at all. If I ever see that farmer's boy again, I'll—I'll—I'll peck his foot!" ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate

... companions were changed into birds, and that these birds have their dwelling in the environs of the Temple of Diomede, which is situated near Mount Garganos; that these birds caress the Greeks who come to visit this temple, but fly at and peck the strangers who ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... appointed Mr. Ferdinand W. Peck, of Chicago, commissioner-general, with an assistant commissioner-general and a secretary. Mr. Peck at once proceeded to Paris, where his success in enlarging the scope and variety of the United States exhibit has been most gratifying. Notwithstanding the comparatively ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley

... stood on two eminences, facing each other, and looking like a couple of fighting-cocks with their necks straight up in the air,—as if they would flap their roofs, the next thing, and crow out of their upstretched steeples, and peck at each other's glass eyes with their ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... descended from a long line of illustrious ancestors. Yes—he was the offspring of a mulatto field-hand by her master. He who was now clothed in fine linen, had once rejoiced in a tow shirt that scarcely covered his nakedness, and had sustained life on a peck of corn a week, receiving the while kicks and curses from a ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... think I was a hungry pussy-cat, and she a hen-sparrow, with her wings all fluttering, and her little eyes aflame, and her beak ready to peck me just because I happened to look near her nest. Nay, child! if thou lik'st to be stifled in a nasty close room, learning things as is of no earthly good when they is learnt, instead o' riding on Job Donkin's hay-cart, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... and lenity; but would a future attempt be treated with the same mercy?—no, my dear Susy, quite the contrary; there would not, indeed, be the same plea to save it; it would no longer be a young lady's first appearance in public; those who have met with less indulgence would all peck at any second work; and even those who most encouraged the first offspring might prove enemies to the second, by receiving it with expectations which it could not answer: and so, between either the friends or the foes of the eldest, the second would stand ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... peck, and a hug around the neck. (She embraces JIM playfully. He hands her the gum, patting his shoulder as he sits on box.) Oh, thank you. ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes

... exceedingly dull person who made the remark, Ex pede Herculem. He might as well have said, "From a peck of apples you may judge of the barrel." Ex PEDE, to be sure! Read, instead, Ex ungue minimi digiti pedis, Herculem, ejusque patrem, matrem, avos et proavos, filios, nepotes et pronepotes! Talk to me about your [Greek text ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... on the lights and grunted out something which optimism might translate into an affectionate husbandly greeting. She came dutifully forward and raised her face, still exquisite and cool from the outer air, for her lord's home-coming kiss. That resolved itself into a slovenly peck. ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... as you call it, Merritt," chuckled the other, considerably mollified by the explanation offered, "has gotten me into a peck of trouble, I admit. But you never saw me show ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... and cry by and by,' says Aunt B. 'You'll pick over a peck-measure and get a bitter apple at last. You are old enough to have more consideration. There he has got a house all finished off and furnished, English carpet in the spare room, and yellow chairs up chamber, brass andirons and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... Nag, if you ask for Humfrey the Ostler, by the same token he has bin there this foure dayes and had but one peck of provender. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... was I. 'How did you ketch 'em?' says you. 'Shovel,' says I. I was making a place beyond the waterfall, and they swimmed in a hole there, where they'd got and couldn't get out again. So I makes a dyke with the peck and turns the water off and then ladles the fish out with the shovel. Two basketsful there was. One I took indoors for the ladies, and t'other we ate; and Brooky put away so many they made him queer for some days. But they ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... money. A foot is always twelve inches, but when is a dollar a dollar? If ton weights changed in the coal yard, and peck measures changed in the grocery, and yard sticks were to-day 42 inches and to-morrow 33 inches (by some occult process called "exchange") the people would mighty soon remedy that. When a dollar is not always a dollar, when the 100-cent dollar becomes the 65-cent dollar, ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... over stiffly and gave her hostess a perfunctory peck on her cheek. "We left Cousin Betty Throckmorton's this morning," she said with a toss of the purple ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... vernal equinox; and this, having the rainy months of March and April to water it, sprung up very pleasantly, and yielded a very good crop; but having part of the seed left only, and not daring to sow all that I had yet, I had but a small quantity at last, my whole crop not amounting to above half a peck of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... taking along are potatoes and onions. Choose potatoes with small eyes and of uniform medium size, even if you have to buy half a bushel to sort out a peck. They are very heavy and bulky in proportion to their food value; so you cannot afford to be burdened with any but the best. Cereals and beans take the place of potatoes when you ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... from whose branches depended seven roasted 'possums. It was some consolation to look at them, and imagine how good they would taste if he only could taste them. Presently a little gingerbread bird flew down and began to peck at him, and say, "Git ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... and Promis'd that you'd never do so no more! This 'tis to have to do with one that has a Wife! I told you first of all what I shou'd find: An ugly Jade, to call me filthy Strumpet! Had I been by, I'd soon have made her smart for't! Any but such a Hen-peck'd Fool as you, that had but heard her say so, wou'd straight have given her such a dash o'th' Chops as shou'd have beat her Teeth into her Throat, and quickly spoil'd her Prating. But I am plagu'd with one that dares not speak a Word to vindicate me. If you are a weary of me, tell me so; for I can ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous

... not take you farther than Sharon Peck's. Your folks would be pretty mad if you walked through the ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... drinking, and all of the very best, but she has gone and filled my portmanteau too, filled it up chock full, sir! A fine ham of bacon, sir, and a pair of roasted fowls, with two bottles of brandy, and a matter of a peck of biscuit." ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... bores me. Hartman now prefers to dwell among the tombs: he has lived these ten years in a graveyard, so to speak, under a canopy of funereal gloom, and he thrives on it. He and Clarice are the most superior persons I know; and they have gone and got themselves into a peck, or rather several bushels, of trouble, about nothing at all. They must like it, or why should they do it? I doubt if I can ever be educated up to that point. I have the rude and simple tastes of a child: sunshine seems to me better than shade (except during ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... to Peck Slip, closely followed by his chums, and there the three boarded a Second avenue car, all unsuspecting as to what a prize they had. At the corner of the Bowery and Bayard street they got out and entered that old red brick hotel on the corner—I forget the ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... her apprehensively. "Sounds to me as if you were trying to make Peter pick a peck of pickled peppers," he commented. And Peter coming in at this opportune moment, he grinned ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... spake the fair Whitefoord, As she sat by the Bishop's knee, 'A peck o' white pennies, my good lord, If ye'll grant Hughie the ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... little dip-net. With that and the flash-light we could get a peck of them. These little streams are ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... house. More in the bank if you're really on the peck. And I paid three thousand cash ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... perfectly satisfied that the whole rush was a passing property in the air, which may have left something to eat behind it. They look upon old shoes, wrecks of kettles and saucepans, and fragments of bonnets, as a kind of meteoric discharge, for fowls to peck at. Peg-tops and hoops they account, I think, as a sort of hail; shuttlecocks, as rain, or dew. Gaslight comes quite as natural to them as any other light; and I have more than a suspicion that, in the minds ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... name, Scipio Johnson, stand some day and be remembered as well as that of Joshua Milliton, A.M. (whatever A.M. might mean), who in 1714 had bequeathed moneys to provide, every Whit-Sunday and Christmas, "twelve white loaves of half a peck to ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... "It seems that in some cases walking in your sleep may turn out to be the right thing. We do owe him something, because it saved our ham this time. But all the same he's got to stop the habit before it gets him into a peck of trouble." ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie

... PECK'S PATENT TUBULAR CUSHIONED EAR DRUMS cure Deafness in all stages. Recommended by scientific men of Europe and America. Write for illustrated descriptive book and testimonials from doctors, judges, ministers and prominent ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... ditch to the trunk of an elm where the thick bark is green with lichen: he goes up the tree like a woodpecker, and peers into every crevice. His little beak strikes, peck, peck, at a place where something is hidden: then he proceeds farther up the trunk: next he descends a few steps in a sidelong way, and finally hops down some three inches head foremost, and alights again on the all but perpendicular bark. ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... Edward III to the reign of Henry VII, a day's earnings, in corn, rose from a pack to near half a bushel, and from Henry VII to the end of Elizabeth, it fell from near half a bushel to little more than half a peck. ...
— Observations on the Effects of the Corn Laws, and of a Rise or Fall in the Price of Corn on the Agriculture and General Wealth of the Country • Thomas Malthus

... chicken that it knows how to run about as soon as it is hatched. So it does; but had it no knowledge before it was hatched? What made it lay the foundations of those limbs which should enable it to run about? What made it grow a horny tip to its bill before it was hatched, so that it might peck all round the larger end of the eggshell and make a hole for itself to get out at? Having once got outside the eggshell, the chicken throws away this horny tip; but is it reasonable to suppose that it ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... a good quantity, what in England you would call a peck. Do not either wipe or wash them. Take four ounces of saltpeter, a pound of bay salt, two pounds of common coarse salt, and pound them well, then add a little cochineal to color it, pound and mix very well. Take a stone jar and put in it a layer of the mixture and a layer of the sprats, on each ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various

... the foot of an oak tree that I had chopped down one cold winter day, I found a poor ground squirrel frozen solid in its snug grassy nest, in the middle of a store of nearly a peck of wheat it had carefully gathered. I carried it home and gradually thawed and warmed it in the kitchen, hoping it would come to life like a pickerel I caught in our lake through a hole in the ice, which, after being frozen as hard as a bone and thawed at the fireside, squirmed ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir

... herself. Her ignorance of the military and political situation was complete; the situation did not interest her. What interested her was that she had three men to feed wholly or partially, and that the price of eatables was rising. She bought eatables. She bought fifty pecks of potatoes at a franc a peck, and another fifty pecks at a franc and a quarter—double the normal price; ten hams at two and a half francs a pound; a large quantity of tinned vegetables and fruits, a sack of flour, rice, biscuits, coffee, Lyons sausage, dried prunes, dried figs, and much wood and ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... brooders of ours keep the chicks quite as warm, and never peck the little fellows, or step upon them, as the old hen ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... a trip to Louray one day last week and purchased three sacks of fertilizer, one peck of clover seed and a half bushel ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy

... yet forty, and for this he is himself my authority, and forty is the prime of life; yet, with an immense fortune and strong temptations, he has never launched out into a single act of imprudence or folly. No, Helen, he never sowed a peck of wild oats in his life. He is, on the contrary, sober, grave, silent—a little too much so, by the way—cautious, prudent, and saving. No man knows the value of money better, nor can contrive to make it go further. Then, as for managing a bargain—upon my soul, I don't think he treated ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... corruption, that I went to him, and expressed my great surprise. Hot words ensued between us; and I told him very plainly that I would have nothing further to say to him or his political profligacy. However, his potatoes were sold, and brought upwards of three guineas the peck, the nabob being the purchaser, who, to show his contentment with the bargain, made Mrs M'Lucre, and the bailie's three daughters, presents of new gowns and princods, that were ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... hummed, and chair by winter fire; When market-morning came, the neat attire With which, though bent on haste, myself I deck'd; My watchful dog, whose starts of furious ire, When stranger passed, so often I have check'd; The red-breast known for years, which at my casement peck'd. ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge

... it was Belcher begun to get wise and start his counter-attack; but the first time I had a chance to slip out and take a squint his way, I saw this whackin' big sign in front of his place: "Potatoes, 40 cents per peck." Which I promptly ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... said Eustace to Mrs. Merrit, as she came into the study one afternoon towards dusk with a step-ladder. "You'd much better leave Peter alone. Starve him into surrender, Mrs. Merrit, and don't leave bananas and seed about for him to peck at when he fancies he's hungry. ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... "Sinful Peck." An undersized man, with a cultivated blond mustache, lifted his hat politely to Mr. Jackson, disclosing a smooth, bald head, and passed over, smiling sweetly. Whatever his character, his name belied his appearance; for his face ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... young water-bird, such as a coot, swims right away when it is tumbled into water for the first time. So chicks peck without any learning or teaching, very young ducklings catch small moths that flit by, and young plovers lie low when the danger-signal sounds. But birds seem strangely limited as regards many of these instinctive capacities—limited when compared with the "little-brained" ants and bees, which ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... taken to sow good and clean seed on clean land. Previous to putting the seed in the ground (drilling is preferable to sowing broadcast), wheat should be soaked five or six hours—not longer—in strong brine. After this, add a peck or more of recently slaked lime to each bushel, and shovel it over well, that the lime may cover each seed. It is now ready to commit to the earth. Most good farmers roll the earth after seeding: ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... life was not knocked out of me I don't know, but it wasn't, and I kicked and thrashed about till I got my head and shoulders to the surface, with a peck of snow down the back of my neck. I looked for the buffaloes, and there they stood in blank astonishment, wondering, I guess, if I always got off of a horse that way. I ran my sleeve along the barrel of my rifle, rested it over a lump ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth

... th' monkey on 'is back, ower this letter job," said the father secretly to me. "Mother 'er knows nowt about it. Lot o' tomfoolery, isn't it? Ay! What's good o' makin' a peck o' trouble ower what's far enough off, an' ned niver come no nigher. No—not a smite o' use. That's what I tell 'er. 'Er should ta'e no notice ...
— Wintry Peacock - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • D. H. Lawrence

... scabbard. His appearance was the signal for a buzz of admiration. He is very tall and well made. Beside him was Mr. James W. Moore. Behind him, as he walked through the thronged rooms, were the Rev. Dr. Henry Highland Garnett, and Mrs. Garnett; the Rev. E. W. S. Peck of the Thirty-fifth Street Methodist Church; Mr. Charles Remond Douglass, son of Fred Douglass, and United States Consul in San Domingo; the Rev. J. S. Atwell, of St. Philip's Episcopal Church; the Rev. John ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... in disguise!" shouted the big leader of the Bats. "Now we'll punish him! Drive him out of the sewer! Peck ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh

... dear," she said, making a peck at Kitty's cheek. "That flunkey, idling his life away on the hall mat, said I should find you here, so I saved him from overwork by showing myself in. How are you, St. John? You're looking a bit peaky this ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... steam pipes running along the bottom, and being filled, the juice slowly simmers Much of the foreign substance rises in a scum to the surface and is skimmed off by the sugar maker. It is further purified by the addition of Thomaston or what is called sugar lime. At one half a peck is considered sufficient for seven hundred and fifty gallons of juice, but much depends upon the quantity of saccharine matter it contains. Another set of pipes now permit the liquor to run into the evaporators, in the boiling room below. ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... have instantly my Vulture, Crow, Raven, come flying hither, on the news, To peck for carrion, my she-wolfe, and all, Greedy, and full ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... white eggs, and when she had as many as she could conveniently take care of, she began to sit on them to keep them warm, till the little ducks should be ready to peck their way out. She plucked the soft white down from her breast, to line the nest, and to make it of a more even temperature for the eggs; and, whenever she left to procure food, or to take a short swim on the ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various

... the corn-spirit often assumes is that of a cock. In Austria children are warned against straying in the corn-fields, because the Corn-cock sits there, and will peck their eyes out. In North Germany they say that "the Cock sits in the last sheaf"; and at cutting the last corn the reapers cry, "Now we will chase out the Cock." When it is cut they say, "We have caught the Cock." At Braller, in Transylvania, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... Still great, and grateful; that's thy character.— Unveil the woman; I would view the face, That warmed our Mufti's zeal: These pious parrots peck the fairest fruit: Such tasters are for kings. [Officers go to ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... do I get by it? Give me but the wide world and one and 20, with 5 farthins ten fingurs and a tongue, and a turn me adrift to morrow; I'de a work my way: I'de a fear nether wind nor weather. For why? I'de a give any man a peck of sweet words for a pint of honey. What! Shall I let the lock rustee for a want of a little oilin? Haven't I a told ee often and often, that a glib tongue, smooth and softly, always with the grain, is worth a ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... genius, wishing to show the perfection of the picture, said to some people who were looking at it, 'These strawberries are so very natural and perfect, that I have seen birds coming down from the trees to peck them, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... straight-stemmed juniper, I cut myself a staff, and sit down at the edge of the wood to trim it. Here and there among the trees a yellow leaf or so still hangs, but the birches are full of catkins set with pearly drops. Now and again half, a dozen small birds swoop down on one of these birches, to peck at the catkins, and then look about for a stone or a rough tree trunk to rub the gum from their beaks. Each is jealous of the rest; they watch and chase and drive one another away, though there are millions ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... recorded at Newington Butts, 1689. "John Arris and Derwick Farlin in one grave, being both Dutch soldiers; one killed the other drinking brandy." But who slew the slayer? The register is silent; but "often eating a shoulder of mutton or a peck of hasty pudding at a time caused the death of James Parsons," at Teddington, in Middlesex, 1743. Parsons had resisted the effects of shoulders of mutton and hasty pudding till the ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... unsettles mores and hence it is immoral. On a small scale it is intolerable, but genius will have no small scales; it is even more immoral for a man to be too far in front than to lag too far behind. The only absolute morality is absolute stagnation, but this is unpractical, so a peck of change is permitted to every one, but it must be a peck only, whereas genius would have ever so many sacks full. There is a myth among some Eastern nation that at the birth of Genius an unkind fairy marred all the good gifts of the other fairies by depriving ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... uncertainty in finding the mouth with anything held in the hand—a spoon, for instance, striking the cheeks, chin, or nose, instead of at once going between the lips; this forms a striking contrast to the case of young chickens which are able to peck grains, etc., soon after they are hatched. Sucking is not a pure reflex, because a satisfied child will not suck when its lips are properly stimulated, and further, the action may be originated centrally, as in a sleeping suckling. At a later stage biting is as instinctive as sucking, and was ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... leaves the greater portion of the interior hollow, as we have seen in the case of the cactus branches. How the birds found that these stalks were hollow is a problem not yet solved, but, nevertheless, they take the trouble to peck away at the hard bark, and once penetrated, they commence to fill the interior; when one space is full, the bird pecks a little ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... peck of trouble," he said, with a whimsical smile, "and I wish you could help me out, though I dislike putting you to so ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy

... pheasant), differs little from the common sort, excepting in the uniformity of its brown colour. In the Lampong country of Sumatra and western part of Java lying opposite to it there is a very large breed of fowls, called ayam jago; of these I have seen a cock peck from off of a common dining table; when inclined to rest they sit on the first joint of the leg and are then taller than the ordinary fowls. It is singular if the same country produces likewise the diminutive breed that goes by ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... workin' day but the tas' was much shorter then other days. Men didn't have time to frolic 'cause they had to fin' food for the fambly; master never give 'nough to las' the whole week. A peck o' co'n, t'ree pound o' beacon, quart o' molasses, a quart o' salt, an' a pack o' tobacco was given the men. The wife got the same thing but chillun accordin' to age. Only one holiday slaves had an' ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various

... swarm of worn-out lobbymen and contractors who, having thoroughly exploited "the old concern," now gathered to gorge upon the new. And by the hundred flocked hither those unclean birds, blinking bleared eyes at any chance bit, whetting foul bills to peck at carrion from the departmental sewer. Busy and active at all hours, the lobby of the Exchange, when the crowd and the noise rose to the flood at night, smacked no little of pandemonium. Every knot of men had its grievance; every flag in the ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... as great a secret as if it was some heinous crime; the minister, I am sure, will not divulge it; as for my part, though I am a woman, yet I know what it is to be a wife.—I would not have thee, James, pass for what the world calleth a writer; no, not for a peck of gold, as the saying is. Thy father before thee was a plain dealing honest man, punctual in all things; he was one of yea and nay, of few words, all he minded was his farm and his work. I wonder from whence thee ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... die— A sweet anticipation! Beware the scent, tho' hunger groan! My gentle kiss (a fishing smack) Shot far amiss and with a hiss I landed pretty well for'ard. A smack I smote with a fearful thwack, A stunning whack across the back, On the upper deck of the Judy Peck. At noon to-day, the fishermen say, We ornament the table— O, wretched deed!—or chicken feed, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... said Tom Betts, with a chuckle, "and I could string off more'n a few times when that same curiosity hauled Bobolink into a peck of trouble. But p'raps your father might let out the secret to you, after the old boxes have been taken away, and then you can ease his mind. Because it's just like he says, and he'll keep on dreamin' the most wonderful things about those cases you ever heard tell about. That imagination ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... to be passing; and if he should, you are safe; for three knocks with his staff will make you hale, and he never forgets any kindnesses. Many stories are current of his wonderful cures; but there is one to be found in Peck's History of Stamford which possesses the rare merit of being written by the patient himself. Upon Whitsunday, in the year of our Lord 1658, "about six of the clock, just after evensong," one Samuel Wallis, of Stamford, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... danger from them, and the people in the fort wandered about as freely as if no foe had ever excited their fears. An accident occurred which sent a tremor of dismay through the whole colony, and which we will describe as related to the intelligent historian, Peck, from the lips of one of the parties, who experienced all ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... odd jobs, we saws an' splits wood an' totes bundles, an' some of 'em raises gyahden, but mos' of us, we fishes. De fish bites an' we ketches 'em. Sometimes we eats 'em an' sometimes we sells 'em; a string o' fish'll bring a peck o' co'n ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... burst out Steve; "I tell you, fellows, we're going to have a peck of trouble with this here ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie

... old lady said, as she tore open the first letter, "go and see if Andy is hitching-up yet. Tell him that the dinner boxes will be ready in quarter-hour. Maybe you'll find him in the bean patch, I sent him to gather a peck o' broad beans. Who's this from?" she went on, turning to the last page of her letter to look at the signature. "H'm—Winnipeg—the bank. Guess I'll read ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... I left early and wandered back to the club. Somebody was making a racket in our old rooms in the High, windows open, you know, and singing. I stopped to look at them, and then they started, 'Willie brewed a peck o' maut,' and, 'pon my soul, I had to come away. Couldn't stand it. It reminded me so badly of you and Arthur and old John Lambert, and all the honest men that used to be there. It was infernally absurd that I should have got so sentimental, but that wasn't the worst of it. For I met Tony and he ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... is fuel for him; it keeps up the supply of animal heat. None of the birds will eat lean meat; they want the clear fat. The jays alight upon it and peck away with great vigor, almost standing on tiptoe to get the proper sweep. The woodpecker uses his head alone in pecking, but the jay's action involves the whole body. Yet his blows are softer, not so sharp and abrupt as those of the woodpecker. ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs



Words linked to "Peck" :   kvetch, buss, quart, raft, large indefinite quantity, haymow, flood, bushel, kiss, osculate, large indefinite amount, eat, dry quart, torrent, hen-peck, Imperial capacity unit, pick at, United States dry unit, plain, quetch, inundation, mint, deluge, complain, kick, great deal, snog, sound off, mess, British capacity unit, strike



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