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Pugilist   /pjˈudʒəlɪst/   Listen
Pugilist

noun
1.
Someone who fights with his fists for sport.  Synonym: boxer.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Pugilist" Quotes from Famous Books



... to avoid those stinging strokes, sniff, growl and push upward, more eager than ever to clutch the poor fellow, who was compressing himself between the limb and the trunk, and raining his blows with the persistency of a pugilist. ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis

... palmy time of the Ring. Every one knows how Byron took lessons from Jackson the boxer; how Shelley had a fight at Eton in which he quoted Homer, but was licked by a smaller boy; how Christopher North whipped the professional pugilist; how Keats himself never had enough of fighting at school, and beat the butcher afterwards. His friend Reynolds, also, liked a set-to with the gloves. His imaginary character, Peter Corcoran, is a poetical lad, who becomes possessed by a passion for prize-fighting. It seems odd ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang

... this was not the first time that Mr Shute had made one of a trio in these circumstances, for the swift dexterity with which he lost Arthur was certainly not that of a novice. So smoothly was it done that it was not until she emerged from the Witching Waves, guided by the pugilist's slim but formidable right arm, that Maud ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... Copperhead mounted all at once upon a pedestal. He had a certain dogged obstinacy in him, suspected by nobody but his mother, who had little enough to say in the guidance of her boy. He set himself square like a pugilist, which was his notion of resistance. Mr. May looked on with a curious mixture of feelings. His own sudden and foolish hope was over, and what did it matter to him whether the detestable father or the coarse son should win? He turned away ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... liar," returned the burglar, promptly. Gunter was fierce by nature. He made no rejoinder, but struck a blow at the other which would have felled him had it taken effect. The burglar, however, was a pugilist. He evaded the blow, and returned it with such force that the fisherman staggered, but recovered himself, and grappled with ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... was a character. Professor Kelley he called himself. He claimed to be a great pugilist, and he was forever telling of the men he had put to sleep. But he couldn't produce the papers to show for it. The public had to take his ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish

... pleased to find the young fellow settled in life, and pushing about one of "them little articles" he seemed to want so much, that I took my "punishment" at the hands of the infant pugilist with great equanimity.—And how is the old ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... Thus the Smiths are known among themselves as the Petulengros. Petul, a horse shoe, and engro a "masculine affix used in the formation of figurative names." Thus Boshomengro (a fiddler) comes from Bosh a fiddle, Cooromengro (a soldier, a pugilist) from ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... part—not to be afraid to strike hard and fast, belaboring the canvas as a pugilist belabors an opponent, ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith

... that period the lily flag of France floated over the bastions of Cape Diamond; the Orignal, in being launched, broke her back and sank. Among the notabilities of Cap Blanc, one is bound to recall the athletic stevedore and pugilist, Jacques Etienne Blais. Should the fearless man's record not reach remote posterity, pointing him out as the Tom Sayers of Cap Blanc, it cannot fail to be handed down as the benefactor of the handsome new church of Notre Dame de la Garde, erected on the shore in 1878, the site of which ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... made a sudden movement, and the back of the strong rough hand, hardened by forty years or more of toil, covered for an instant the youth's nose and mouth. That single movement of a female arm, the muscular development of which a pugilist might have envied, shed more blood than all the clawing, tugging, and butting of the male combatants had caused to flow. 'That is to teach you,' said the strong woman, 'not to ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... the pugilist, is about to become naturalized as a French subject. Frankly, America has brought ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various

... in very jolly company: more warriors; young Robson, the actor who became so famous; a big negro pugilist, called Snowdrop; two medical students from St. George's Hospital, who boxed well and were capital fellows; and an academy art student, who died a Royal Academician, and who did not approve of Barty's mural decorations and laughed at the colored lithographs; ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... worst news I have to offer is in regard to Mr. Brainard personally. Our detective reports that his time outside is spent in most questionable company. He has been seen drinking at roof-gardens with a certain dissipated pugilist named Little Sullivan, and was traced with this man to the apartment of a song-and-dance woman named Violette. He seems to be spending money extravagantly and visits certain bohemian quarters in the vicinity of Jones Street, where he puts ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... as it were, the champion and security of those who, although much longer at sea and more experienced than he was, were glad to shelter themselves under his courage and skill, the latter of which had excited the admiration of the butcher of the ship, who had been a pugilist by profession. Thus did Jack at once take the rank of an oldster, and soon became the leader of all the mischief. We particularly observe this, because, had it so happened that our hero had succumbed to Vigors, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... her strength was failing her, he was certain; her moans were becoming more frequent, her protests more vehement. The veins stood out on the doctor's forehead as he worked with her—muscular, like a pugilist. Gigantic, he seemed to Thyrsis—terrible as fate. Time and again the girl screamed, in sudden agony; he would toil on, his lips set. Once it was too much even for him—her cries had become incessant, and he nodded to the nurse, who took a bottle from ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... countenance, who is anticipating, in feeble follies, an estate that has been in the possession of his ancestors since the reign of Henry the Eighth. There is a hairy, high-nosed, broken-down nondescript, in appearance something between a horse-dealer and a pugilist. He is an old Etonian. Five years ago he drove his four-in-hand; he is now waiting to beg a sovereign, having been just discharged from the Insolvent Court, for the second time. Among the women, a pretty actress, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... in a deep, but not unpleasant voice, "allow me to introduce to you my friend, Mr. —-, the celebrated pugilist;" and he motioned with his hand towards the massive man with ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... was the win of the Gladstonian Party at Newcastle like the triumph of a single-fisted pugilist over his two-handed opponent? Because the victory ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various

... the public schools of Philadelphia pass under my teaching, and never met with but one instance of direct rudeness. There was also only one of dishonesty or theft, and that was by a fighting boy, who looked like a miniature pugilist. Philadelphia manners were formed by Quakers. When I visited, in 1884, certain minor art-work classes established in the East End of London, Mr. Walter Besant said to me that I would find a less gentle set of pupils. In fact, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... now stepped forth. A mighty man at cutting and drying, he was; a government officer; in his way (and in most other people's too), a professed pugilist; always in training, always with a system to force down the general throat like a bolus, always to be heard of at the bar of his little Public-office, ready to fight all England. To continue in fistic ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... [it ran] 50 sovs each h ft with 1000 sovs added for four and five year olds. Second, L300. Third, L200. New course (one mile and five furlongs). Mr. Heath Newton's The Negro. Red cap. Cinnamon jacket. Colonel Wardlaw's Pugilist. Pink cap. Blue and black jacket. Lord Backwater's Desborough. Yellow cap and sleeves. Colonel Ross's Silver Blaze. Black cap. Red jacket. Duke of Balmoral's Iris. Yellow and black stripes. Lord Singleford's Rasper. ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... public in Chicago during 1905, was another "man-woman," of large and masculine type. She preferred to dress as a man and had many love escapades with women. "She can fiddle as well as anyone in the State," said a man who knew her, "can box like a pugilist, and can dance ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... were looking on, and with a shilling which was thrown to me from the window of the inn. Ben the Whaler, who had witnessed the fray, told me, the next day, that I handled my fists remarkably well, and that I had but to keep a higher guard and I should fight well. He was an old pugilist himself, and he gave me a few directions which I did not forget. I soon had occasion to put them into practice; for, two days afterwards, another boy, bigger than myself, as I was plying as "Poor Jack," pushed me back so hard that I fell off the steps into the deep water, and there was a general ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... was fiery; he loved a fight. He never was worsted, the nearest thing to it being a draw between himself and Terry Barr. After that Terry went to the States and became a professional pugilist of note. Bill's social record was not without blemish. He was known to have appropriated a rope, to the far end of which was attached another man's horse. He certainly had been in jail once and should have been there a dozen times, for worse crimes than fighting. And ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... certainly complimentary, but there was still a burning sensation lingering about the nose of the young planter, where that member had been flattened by his fellow-pugilist. ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic

... Bulldog, but an uncompromising mongrel; albeit he served his immediate purpose, and was highly valued for his pertinacity, if not for his appearance. In 1806 Lord Camelford possessed one for which he had paid the very high price of eighty-four guineas, and which he presented to Belcher, the pugilist. This dog was figured in The Sporting Magazine of the time. He was a short-legged, thick-set, fawn-coloured specimen, with closely amputated ears, a broad blunt muzzle, and a considerable lay-back; and this was the kind of dog which ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... to be the correct term. One of my patients tells me that it is the talk of the district. A local ruffian, a patient of ours, by the way, matched against a pugilist over at Croxley. I cannot understand why the law does not step in and stop so degrading an exhibition. It is really a ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... stroked his face, and thus began: "And hopest thou then," the injured Bernard said, "To launch thy thunders on a master's head? O, wont to deal the trope and dart the fist, Half-learn'd logician, half-form'd pugilist, Censor impure, who dar'st, with slanderous aim, And envy's dart, assault a H——r's name. Senior, self-called, can I forget the day, When titt'ring under-graduates mock'd thy sway, And drove thee foaming from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... largest of the machos, tearing his head from the manger to which he was fastened, his eyes shooting flames, and breathing a whirlwind from his nostrils, flung himself on my stallion. The horse, as savage as himself, reared on his hind legs, and after the fashion of an English pugilist, repaid the other with a pat on the forehead, which nearly felled him. A combat instantly ensued, and I thought that the words of the sullen woman would be verified by the house being torn to pieces. It ended by my seizing the mute by the halter, at the risk of my limbs, and hanging upon ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... thoughtfully at the newspaper cuts of a great Tammany leader and a noted pugilist, which had been labeled as the ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... could be found. Pleiades (ple' ya dez). The seven daughters of Atlas. Made by Jupiter a constellation in the sky. Pluto (plu' to). The god of the lower world, or Hades. Pollux (pol' luks). A famous pugilist, and twin brother of Castor. Poseidon (po sei' don). The Greek name of Neptune. Prometheus (pro me' the us). The Titan who gave fire to man. Proserpina (pro ser' pi na). The daughter of Ceres. python (py' thon). A mythical serpent ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd

... plebes there were a few who stood head and shoulders above their companions in athletics. Hodge went in for fencing, and Professor Rhynas declared he would make a master of the foil. Hugh Bascomb, with a pugilist's thick neck and round head, was spending all his spare time boxing, and it was said that he could strike a blow that would stagger an ox. His admirers declared it was a beautiful sight to see him hammer the punching-bag, and they assured him over and over that he was certain ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish

... polished his glasses, he screwed up his eyes, he smiled, he frowned. Watching him with intense interest, Leigh entirely forgot the speaker. He had not imagined the President's build so powerful. There was a brute strength in the neck and shoulders that would have been no inadequate endowment for a pugilist; yet this suggestion was offset by an expression of which his pictures had given scarcely a hint. It was not difficult to understand how his enthusiastic biographer had been carried away by that probity and sweetness, so that he made both himself and his hero ridiculous and ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... part of what they spend on killing men, or rather in making preparation for killing men and then not doing it, the secrets of the earth would be laid bare in a time inordinately short." But this very warlike ambition is a matter of CRIMINAL OSTENTATION, like that of the bullying pugilist, seeking the belt—the desperate determination to shine and boast as the master power in the field of war, which is to-day the insane ostentation fostered by the leading powers of Europe. Vanity, literally meaning emptiness, is the antithesis ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various

... churches last year called a clergyman named Rev. Joseph Striker. In the same place, by a most unfortunate coincidence, resides also a prize-fighter named Joseph Striker, and rumors were afloat a few weeks ago that the latter Joseph was about to engage in a contest with a Jersey pugilist for the championship. Our sheriff considered it his duty to warn Joseph against the proposed infraction of the laws, and so he determined to call upon the professor of the art of self-defence. Unhappily, in inquiring the way to the pugilist's house, somebody misunderstood ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... Simpson, had licked Tom Walker, the wonder knew no bounds. So struck were some of the men with Jack's courage and endurance, that the offer was made to him that, if he liked to go to Birmingham and put himself under that noted pugilist the "Chicken," his expenses would be paid, and L50 be forthcoming for his first match. Jack, knowing that this offer was made in good faith and with good intentions, and was in accordance with the custom of mining villages, declined it ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty

... superseded the legitimate drama. "There are three ingredients essential to the success of such an entertainment," Thessaly pronounced: "fat legs, thin legs, and legs." They witnessed a knuckle-fight in Whitechapel between a sailorman and a Jewish pugilist. The referee was a member of a famous sporting club, and the purse was put up by a young peer on leave from the bloody shambles before Ypres. "Our trans-Tiber ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... A Pugilist met the Moral Sentiment of the Community, who was carrying a hat-box. "What have you in the hat-box, my friend?" ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce

... the ex-pugilist. "He must be tryin' for a roof getaway." He turned and led the joint forces back ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... although they did not relish, him or his treatment of them, once here they stayed. Walking or running or idling about with them one could always hear from one or another that Culhane was too harsh, a "bounder," an "upstart," a "cheap pugilist" or "wrestler" at best (I myself thought so at times when I was angry), yet here they were, and here I was, and staying. He was low, vulgar—yet here we were. And yet, meditating on him, I began to think that he was really one of the most ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... figure of Price, who looked like a well-dressed pugilist. He was verging on stoutness, and his face was round, but underneath the superfluous flesh one could see the jaw of a man of iron will. It was easy to believe that Price had fought his way through life. He spoke sharply ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair

... far-away "XXX" ranch, who had been here for two days now, and had lost the price of a small herd; Gilbert of the "Lost Range," whose brand was a circle within a circle; Stetson of the "XI," a short heavy-set man, with an immovable pugilist's face, to-night, as usual, ahead of the game; Thompson, one-armed but formidable, who drove the stage and kept the postoffice and inadequate general store just across to the north of the saloon; McFadden, a wiry little Scotchman with sandy whiskers, Rankin's nearest neighbor to the south; a half-dozen ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... give up all her nonsense, and behave herself—but I suppose it was in her natur' and she couldn't help it. She made eyes and gave encouragement to the men, until they became saucy and I became jealous, and I had to fight one, and then the other, until I became a noted pugilist. I will say that your mother seemed always very happy when I beat my man, which latterly I always did; but still she liked to be fit for, and I had hardly time to earn my bread. At last, some one backed me against another man in the ring for fifty pound aside, and ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... bookstore, not an ignoble news-stand, but had displayed his wife's picture. It was Mrs. Carey, Mrs. Oswald Carey, Mrs. Carey and the ex-King, everywhere. One infamous pictorial publication had a bare-necked portrait of the "notorious Eleanor Carey" side by side with that of "Jim Dingan, the Lynn pugilist." As he entered Washington Street, the newsboys were crying, "Horrible crime in New York! Scandal in high life! Mrs. Carey leaves the court!" and Carey read the caption outlined on ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... the squared ring. He leaped lightly to the raised platform and ducked through the ropes to his corner, where he sat down on a folding stool. Jack Ball, the referee, came over and shook his hand. Ball was a broken-down pugilist who for over ten years had not entered the ring as a principal. King was glad that he had him for referee. They were both old uns. If he should rough it with Sandel a bit beyond the rules, he knew Ball could be depended ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... as he regarded life—as a huge adventure. An amusing thing happened during the production of "The Other Girl," a play by Augustus Thomas, in which a pugilist has a prominent role. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... with the reaction from sitting in the cold station, and the beer and everything, they all grew enthusiastic. Doctor Barnes made a speech, telling that he used to be puny and weak, and how he went into training and became a pugilist, and how he'd fought the Tennessee something or other—the men nodded as if they knew—and licked him in forty seconds or forty rounds, I'm not sure which. The men were standing on their chairs cheering for him, and even ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... were presently surrounded by passengers, waiters, chairmen, footmen, hackney-coachmen and link-boys. It was a strange disgusting situation; but it did not admit of a remedy. This fellow, Mac Fane, has studied the whole school of assault, and is a practised pugilist. When I was a boy thou knowest, Oliver, and before thy worthy father had taught me better, I was myself vain of my skill and prowess. I was not therefore the novice which he expected to have found. Not to mention, Oliver, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... with the destiny of nations, who were made welcome at the gates of Blois. If any man of accomplishment came that way, he was sure of an audience, and something for his pocket. The courtiers would have received Ben Jonson like Drummond of Hawthornden, and a good pugilist like Captain Barclay. They were catholic, as none but the entirely idle can be catholic. It might be Pierre, called Dieu d'amours, the juggler; or it might be three high English minstrels; or the two men, players of ghitterns, from the kingdom of Scotland, who sang the destruction of ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... coolly dismounted, threw the bridle over his horse's neck, walked up to the workman, who had taken the position of a practised pugilist to receive him, and, without giving him time to strike, he disarmed him with one hand by a blow which would have been sufficient to uproot the beech rod before it was metamorphosed into a club; with the other hand he seized the man by the collar ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... is much diversity of condition among the inhabitants. Nor did Morrissey mean simply to protest against training as a qualification for the work of administration, as the Tribune assumed in a sharp and incisive lecture which it read him the other day. We doubt if any pugilist in his secret heart despises training. He knows how much depends on it, and as he is not apt to possess much discriminating power, he is not likely to mark off any particular class of work as not needing it. What ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... fact that any man who desires to excel and retain his excellence as an accurate shot, an oarsman, a pedestrian, a pugilist, a first-class cricketer, bicyclist, student, artist, or literary man, must abstain from self-pollution and fornication. Thousands of school boys and students lose their positions in the class, and ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... brandy, the old man seized the pugilist round the waist, shook him for a few moments as he would have done with a little child, and pitched him at random to the other side of the road. Then, satisfied with this piece of work, he crossed his arms ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... by a "fizzing devil" made out of moist powder, which burnt a hole through it. He says that he would rather have this recollection on his mind now, than the "fizzer" on his head at the time. The young artist in embryo was a rare young pugilist at school. He was forced to use his fists, as friction was strong between the Irish and English lads at the school he went to. But he did well in athletic sports, and was never beaten in a hundred yards race. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... Hamilton, Captain, author of Cyril Thornton his boat on lake Handwriting, Mary Mitford's Hare, Landor's friend Harrison, American President Harrow days, old Hatred, Our Lady of Hebraist, learned Heckfield, Mary Mitford at Heenan the pugilist Heidelberg Heights, Witley Hennell, Miss Sara, Mrs. Lewes to Heretics, persecution of Hermolaus, Barbarus Hervieu, M., his portrait of my mother High Church opinions, my sister's Highways and Byeways, Grattan's new edition of Hill, Herbert, Southey's nephew Hill, Theodosia, in Our Village ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... that, and I went after Mahr myself. I think I can give you a fair idea of his daily life. He's at the office early—before nine, usually—and by twelve he's off, unless something unusual happens. He lunches with a club of men, as I guess you know. He goes for an hour to Tim McCurdy's, the ex-pugilist, for training. Then he's home for an hour with his secretary, going over private business and correspondence. Then he goes to the club for bridge, and in the evening he's usually out somewhere—any place ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... strength. Amasis orders a statue just as I should a sword. Breadth and length being specified, we both of us know quite well, before the master has begun his work, what we shall receive when it is finished. How could I possibly fashion an infirm old man like an eager youth? a pugilist like a runner in the foot-race? a poet like a warrior? Put Ibykus and our Spartan friend side by side, and tell me what you would say, were I to give to the stern warrior the gentle features and gestures of our ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers



Words linked to "Pugilist" :   light flyweight, sparring partner, flyweight, junior lightweight, heavyweight, palooka, slugger, belligerent, stumblebum, featherweight, gladiator, prizefighter, combatant, lightweight, light middleweight, light heavyweight, light welterweight, slogger, junior welterweight, battler, bantamweight, junior middleweight, middleweight, super heavyweight, scrapper, welterweight, pugilism, junior featherweight, fighter, sparring mate, puncher



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