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The boot

noun
1.
An instrument of torture that is used to heat or crush the foot and leg.  Synonyms: boot, iron boot, iron heel.






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"The boot" Quotes from Famous Books



... hanging on the walls or ranged on the table. Of these, although the lads were ignorant of their uses, they entertained no doubt, whatever, that they were the instruments of torture of which they had heard—thumb screws, iron gags, the boot, the rack, and other devilish inventions. They made no reply to the address, and were taken away, this time, down several winding stairs to a black and noxious dungeon, far below the general ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... cried he. "Lord, let it be over soon." He was about to fall down on his knees to pray, when a fit of laughter seized him. "I must trust to myself, not to prayers." He quickly dressed himself. "Shall I put the boot on?" he thought, "better throw it away, and hide all traces of it." Nevertheless he put it on, only, however, to throw it off again with an expression of horror. As, however, he recollected he had no other, a ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... singularly clear voice, which had more command in it than a much louder tone in others. Watts had learned to recognize it, and from past experience knew that Peter was not to be moved when he used it. But here the case was different. Hitherto he had been trying to make Peter do something. Now the boot was on the other leg, and Watts saw therein a chance for some fun. He therefore continued to stand still, as they had all done since Peter had exploded his first speech, and began to whistle. Both ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... The high heel of a French boot was driven through the perineum one inch from the median line, midway between the anus and the posterior commissure of the labia majora. The wound extended into the vagina above the external opening, in which the heel, now separated from the boot, projected, and whence it was removed without difficulty. This wound was the only injury sustained ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... said the boot-black, favorably impressed by Ben's pluck. "Just go straight ahead, and you'll come to Broadway. I'm going that way, and you can come along with me if ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger

... weather high waterproof boots worn over two pairs of thick socks or stockings. The object of having the outer sock ribbed is to allow the evaporation from the skin to have space between the outer sock and the boot; the foot and inner sock will thus remain perfectly dry. The author has walked long distances with this sort of foot-gear with the greatest comfort. Perfect freedom for the foot and toes is, it must be ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston

... Hinkey, turning and catching his new leader's eye. "Do you hear what the boot-lick insinuates about the new ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... Poetzl, quickly formed his acquaintance, and they sometimes stood there together. Once while Clemens was making some notes, Poetzl interested the various passers by asking each one—the errand-boy, the boot-black, the chestnut-vender, cabmen, and others—to guess who the stranger was and what he wanted. Most of them recognized him when their attention was called, for the newspapers had proudly heralded his arrival and his ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... there is a great deal more difference between two babies, than between you and all the other young dandies who walk Broadway. They are all alike, the same cut of the coat and collar, and whiskers; the same tie of the neck-cloth, and shape of the boot: when you have seen one, you have seen all. But now just take a good look at this magnificent baby, and confess; wouldn't you ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely

... meat if you don't clean 'em out right away," he remarked casually to Lorraine, as he wiped the knife on his trousers and thrust it back into the boot-scabbard before he tied the grouse to the saddle by its ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... was at the door, and Mary's trunk strapped up in the boot before she came down. In the porch stood her father and mother, and her younger brother and ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... mare! I've ridden you when Claver'se rode behind, And from the thumbscrew and the boot you bore me like the wind; And while I have the life you saved, on your sleek flank, I swear, Episcopalian rowel shall never ruffle hair! Though sword to wield they've left me none—yet Wallace wight I wis, Good battle did, on Irvine side, wi' waur ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... till they fairly wet themselves agin with cryin'. Wouldn't it be fun, that's all? I could sting Peel so if I liked, he'd think a galley nipper had bit him, and he'd spring right off the floor on to the table at one jump, gout or no gout, ravin' mad with pain and say, 'I'm bit thro' the boot by Gosh;' or if I was to take his side, for I care so little about the British, all sides is alike to me, I'd make them Irish members dance like ravin', distractin' bed bugs. I'd make 'em howl, first wicked and then dismal, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... illuminated Free Trade, I now proceed to elucidate Protection. You see when we reach Protection, the boot is on the other leg; you make the conundrums then, and the other man tries to guess them. There are many kinds of protection; there's the kind which a State's prison-keeper gives to one of his ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various

... "you must promise me not to spend any of it in the public-house. And this is for your boot. And you must go back by train. And get those buttons sewn on your coat. And tell cook, from me, please, to give you some tea and an egg." And noticing that he took the sovereign and the boot-lace very respectfully, and seemed altogether very respectable, and not at all coarse or beery-looking, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... made a violent rush at and pursued him a considerable distance. Having to proceed through the same place the next journey, which was about twelve months afterwards, and while in the act of leading his horse, the dog, no doubt recollecting his former assailant, instantly seized him by the boot, and bit his leg. Some persons, however, coming up, rescued him ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... the blubber from the bodies. Porpoises have no skin, that is hide, the blubber or coating of lard which encases them being covered by a black substance as thin as tissue paper. The porpoise hide of the boot maker is really leather, made from the skin of the BELUGA, or "white whale," which is found only in the far north. The cover was removed from the "tryworks" amidships, revealing two gigantic pots set in a frame of brickwork side by side, capable ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... and cool, avoiding every provocation, but if attacked, the aggressor must be punished on the spot. In the second case, the man who drew his weapon was instantly shot down. There was now a demand for the soldier to be tried by the local civil court; but I said that the boot was on the other foot. The charge against the soldier was for an act performed in the line of his military duty, and of this our military courts had cognizance. The case was investigated by a military ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... disembarked he found little interest in the reparations which he was charged to offer. He had been prepared to settle a grievance in a good-natured way; he now felt himself obliged to demand explanations. The boot was on the other leg; and the American public lost none of the humor of the situation. Eventually he offered to disavow Admiral Berkeley's act, to restore the seamen taken from the Chesapeake, and to ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... by business firms in large London stores, notably Harrods and Whiteleys, where their courses included all office and business training. Six week courses of free training for the grocery trade, for the boot trade, lens making, waiting, hairdressing, ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... the axle, and returned slowly and pensively to the hotel. A third spectator wearily disengaged himself from one of the Ionic columns of the portico and walked to the box, remained for a moment in serious and expectorative contemplation of the boot, and then returned to his column. There was something so weird in this baptism that I ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... 'im no 'arm," replied Stott, and shuddered. "I don't wish 'im no 'arm," he repeated, as he kicked off the boot he had ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford

... attached to the saddle on the top of the bluff. For present purposes it might as well have been at the North Pole. He could not leave her while she was like this. But since he had to be giving some first aid, he drew from her foot the boot that had been in the steel trap, so as to ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine

... before Bothwell with a musket, and afterwards, for a continuance of months, delved the garden at Montroymont. Matters went very ill with Ninian at the Council; some of the lords were clear for treason; and even the boot was talked of. But he was spared that torture; and at last, having pretty good friendship among great men, he came off with a fine of seven thousand marks, that caused the estate to groan. In this case, as in so many others, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... understand that he had better not rush into print. Though the 'Broughton Gazette' should come to the attack again and again, he must hold his peace. That reference to Mr. Puddicombe's dirty boot had convinced him. He could see the thoroughly squalid look of the boot that had been scraped in vain, and appreciate the wholesomeness of the unadulterated mud. There was more in the man than he had ever acknowledged before. There was a consistency in him, and a courage, and an honesty of purpose. But there was no softness of heart. Had there been ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

... in proportion to the worry which the deputy caused him. He had but one longing, to pocket him, as he put it, to have him at his bidding by fair means or foul, to extract his secret from him. He dreamt of tortures fit to unloose the tongue of the most silent of men. The boot, the rack, red-hot pincers, nailed planks: no form of suffering, he thought, was more than the enemy deserved; and the end to be attained justified ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc

... and persecuted them! Fifteen rebels were hanged: the use of torture to extract information was a return, under Fletcher, the King's Advocate, to a practice of Scottish law which had been almost in abeyance since 1638—except, of course, in the case of witches. Turner vainly tried to save from the Boot {208} the Laird of Corsack, who had protected his life from the fanatics. "The executioner favoured Mr Mackail," says the Rev. Mr Kirkton, himself a sufferer later. This Mr Mackail, when a lad of twenty-one (1662), had already denounced the rulers, in a sermon, as on ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... to her memory!" He shivered as with cold, still clinging to Thord's arm. "But I did not tell you what great good comes of sending a book to the King! It means less to a writer than to a boot-maker. For the boot-maker can put up a sign: 'Special Fitter for the ease of His Majesty's Corns'—but if a poet should say his verse is 'accepted' by a monarch, the shrewd public take it at once to be bad verse, and will have none of it! That is the case ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... things, have killed Elzeviers. Nothing could be more convenient for saddle-bag or knapsack, or the restricted luggage which one could stow in the boot of a coach. But who makes a practice nowadays of putting books into his suit-case or gladstone-bag?[13] Besides, before the advent of railways, there was not the same facility for distributing books, and one might ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... ineffectual attempt to recover the second verse, he sung the first over again; and, in prosecution of his triumph, declared there was 'more sense in that than in all the derry-dongs of France, and Fifeshire to the boot of it.' The Baron only answered with a long pinch of snuff and a glance of infinite contempt. But those noble allies, the Bear and the Hen, had emancipated the young laird from the habitual reverence in which he held ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... Tretton, and I will come up to you on Tuesday. I have got a frock which I will bring with me as a present for Potsey; and I will make her sew on the buttons for herself. Tell Minna I will lend her that book I spoke of. About those boots—I will go with Georgina to the boot-maker." But as to Amelia and Sophy she could not bring herself to say a good-natured word, so deep in her heart had sunk that sin of which they had been guilty ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... really without hearts, or manners either, mademoiselle," added Pipelet, in an angry voice, flourishing the boot he was repairing, in which he had thrust ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... modest gravity. After all, it was to Dora that his eyes turned again most naturally. He thought her exquisite, and, rather than be long without a glimpse of her, he contented himself with fixing his eyes on the hem of her dress and the boot-toe that ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... lets the kid rip, in which case he may find himself any morning in the pleasant position of having to explain to his people exactly why it is that little Willie has just received the boot, and why he didn't look after him better: or he spends all his spare time shadowing him to see that he doesn't get into trouble. He feels that his reputation hangs on the kid's conduct, so he broods over him like a policeman, which is pretty rotten for ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... inserted his heel in the cleft, but, on attempting to pull his foot from the boot, he nearly went heels over head backward. Murphy caught him and put him on his legs again. "Heads up, soldiers," exclaimed Murtough; "I thought you ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... from the boot of the cart after the vehicle had made one or two turnings. When he did this he dropped flat in the middle of the road and remained there until Jem had made another turn, when he was up and away, again on the trail of ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster

... merely wears an unadorned wooden leg. The shoemaker, a Spaniard, whom I can recommend to all customers as the most impertinent individual I ever encountered, was arguing, in a blustering manner, with a gentleman who had brought a message from the general, desiring some alteration in the boot: and wound up by muttering, as the messenger left the shop, "He shall either wear it as it is, or review the troops ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... approached he ordered his sledge, hid the revolver in the boot of it, and set out on his way to ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann

... 14. The boot was a favourite drinking cup during the Middle Ages. The writer has seen a boot-shaped mug, bearing the inscription, "Wer . sein . Stiefel . nit . trinken . kan . Der . ist . fürwahr . kein ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland

... satisfied. There was no one like his father, and of course he would be as good at blowing people up as at everything else. He had never heard him do it, and he was looking forward to it immensely while he hobbled along with the boot-jack. He was not using it as a wooden leg now, for fear of tempting Providence; but he held it under his arm like a crutch, supporting it on the edge of the foundation wall, because it was too short. How splendid it would be to go on two crutches like the parson's ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... Miller never did that and Mark Twain, Josh Billings, Bill Nye and George Ade, none of 'em ever reached that height of humor. The only difference between us is that they got cash for their jokes, whereas all the pay I get is the boot and the chance to go yelping down the street with a washboiler tied to my tail. Well, if a fellow puts grease on the front door steps he shouldn't squeal if he forgets and ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton

... superfine navy-blue,—the whole suit from the same piece, and in the fashion of the time of the Revolution, and always replaced by a new one before it showed age. He was neat in his person, always wore fine linen, a fine cambric stock, a fine fur hat with a brim to it, fair top-boots—the boot outside of the pantaloons, on the principle that leather was stronger ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... has increased wages in general 12.9 per cent, while in certain selected trades they have run as high as 34.9 per cent and 38 per cent. Even in the boot and shoe shops the increase is over 5 per cent and in woolen mills 8.4 per cent, although these industries have not prospered like others. As the rise in living costs in this period is negligible, these figures represent real ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... the ordinary means of living for nearly all of us. And in what business is there not humbug? "There's cheating in all trades but ours," is the prompt reply from the boot-maker with his brown paper soles, the grocer with his floury sugar and chicoried coffee, the butcher with his mysterious sausages and queer veal, the dry goods man with his "damaged goods wet at the great fire" and his "selling at ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... beech grove this very minute to fetch Wiseli to our house. She can have my bed," said Pussy, decidedly. But quite as decidedly old Trine stalked over to Pussy, at these words, lifted her up, placed her firmly on a chair, while she pulled off the boot that was half on; but said, in a pacifying tone, to the kicking and ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri

... it's the old story of the sugar over again. Your wife is an adulterated article. Her lovely yellow hair is—dye. Her exquisite skin is—pearl powder. Her plumpness is—padding. And three inches of her height are—in the boot-maker's heels. Shut your eyes, and swallow your adulterated wife as you swallow your adulterated sugar—and, I tell you again, you are one of the few men who can try the marriage experiment with a ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... would take rank at once among the masters of the craft. In April, also, Blackwood's Magazine gave the book a hearty welcome. The natural, genuine descriptions of village life were commended, and the boot was praised for its "hearty, manly sympathy with weakness, not inconsistent with hatred of vice." Throughout this notice the author is spoken of as "Mr. Eliot." The critic of the Westminster Review, in an appreciative and favorable notice, expressed a doubt if the author could be a man. He cited ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... sally, was struck by a musket-ball that entered his left foot, above the root of the toes, and went out at the heel. The king continued in the field for an hour afterward, giving his orders as usual; but when he retired to his quarters, the leg was so much swelled that the boot had to be cut off, and the wound had so unfavorable an appearance as greatly to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... there, docther, anyway." Mr. Flanagan made a sudden start for the stairs, with the boot and lamp at arm's length before him, and stopped as suddenly. "Yull go up? or wud she come down to ye?" There was as much anxious indecision in Mr. Flanagan's general aspect, pending the reply, as if he had to answer the ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... big stones on the hillside, Peter knew, was cached illicit whisky, and at night the boot-leggers carried on a brisk trade among the gamblers. More than that, the glade on the Big Hill was used for still more demoralizing ends. It became a squalid grove of Ashtoreth; but now, in the autumn evening, ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... The next he knew, out of the red ruck, was that he had Hobart by the throat, jammed against the wall, with fingers clinched in the throat. Then he saw the other coming, a dim, shapeless thing, that he kicked at viciously. The boot must have landed, for he was suddenly free to strike the purple face fronting him, and fling the helpless rocking body in a huddled ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... labouring under the most erroneous impressions as to the conveyance in which she is travelling, evidently confounding it with mail-coaches, insomuch that, in regard to her luggage, she clamours to the driver to "put it in the boot," her absorbing anxiety about the pattens, "with which she plays innumerable games of quoits upon Mr. Pecksniff's legs," her evolutions in that confined space with her most prominently visible chattel, "a species of ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... in rummaging about the room, had overturned the boot, which had fallen in such manner that the top pressed against the wall, thus effectually barring the way to the nest. I righted the boot, thereby restoring the children to their parents, much to the delight ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir

... been laid on the couch just as he had been killed, fully clothed. He had been shot through the body near the heart, and a large patch of blood had welled from the wound and congealed in his shirt. One trouser leg was ruffled up, and had caught in the top of the boot. ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... came home from Dr. Strongitharm's, and at the first sound of his boots in the hall Maurice in the cat's body fled with silent haste to hide in the boot-cupboard. ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit

... out this water. We ain't so bad, now. We're bound to get shoved ashore at some bend, or the wind'll blow us ashore. Looks to me as if she was widenin' out. Must of overflowed some flat." Mechanically she took the boot and, following the example of the Texan, began to bail out. "Rain's quit, an' this wind'll dry us out when we get the boat emptied so we don't have to sit in the water. ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx

... was alarmed by an alleged increase in the export of footwear to Switzerland, and particularly to villages on the German frontier. He yields to none in his desire to give the KAISER the boot, but not in any surreptitious manner. Lord WOLMER comforted him with the statement that the bulk of the exports consisted of women's and children's shoes, quite useless to the Germans until they get down to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various

... visitors are requested to take their seats in the tramcar, and some of the Indian boys will push them up to the Home. We can already see the Institution over the brow of the hill, and a little to the right the Memorial Chapel, and nearer to us the Factory, and off to the left the boot shop and carpenter's cottage. We note that there are neat stone walls round some of the fields, and a white picket fence inclosing the Institution; the old-fashioned lych-gate in front of the Chapel also strikes us, with the hops clambering ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson

... design; nearly 100 are engaged in the crinoline department. In the same long room, about 50 are weaving wire for sifting cotton, making wire sieves, rat traps, gridirons, flower baskets, cattle noses, etc. The principal work, however, is carried on in the boot and shoe department. The labor of the boys is let out to contractors, who supply their own foremen to teach the boys and superintend the work, but the society have their own men to keep order and correct the boys when necessary, the contractors' men not being allowed to ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... Thibet that fraternal polyandry is in full vigour, for in this country religion sanctions the custom, and it is practised by the ruling classes.[155] Its customs are too well known to need description. "The tyranny of man is hardly known among the happy women of Thibet; the boot is perhaps upon ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... The boot and shoe trade has had the same history. Large numbers of foreigners are employed in this work. The workers are kept in ignorance of the language and under surveillance, so as to be taken advantage of. They are not instructed in the more skilled work, and, to use the words ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... height from seventy to two hundred and fifty feet. The floor is formed in some places of sand, but generally of indurated mud, so hard that it is impossible to make any indentation in it with the heel of the boot, and remarkably even and smooth, so that almost anywhere one can walk with as much ease as on city sidewalks. The walls also are clean and smooth, as in the arched crypts of some mighty cathedral. A cross section of almost any one of these tunnels would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... day—the Derby race—rushed over the greensward, and by the shouting millions of people assembled to view that magnificent scene. This was Wheeler's (the Harlequin's Head) drag, which had brought down a company of choice spirits from Bow Street, with a slap-up luncheon in the boot. As the whirling race flashed by, each of the choice spirits bellowed out the name of the horse or the colours which he thought or he hoped might be foremost. "The Cornet!" "It's Muffineer!" "It's blue sleeves!" "Yallow cap! yallow cap! yallow cap!" and so forth, yelled ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... line didn't hold? What if the pass was poor? But the next minute the ball was coming back to him. The line wavered and the pass was low. By the time he got in position to kick the players were almost upon him. He put every ounce of strength into the boot. ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman

... have been hunting and the boot remained stuck in the mud. I am sure of indulgence from you. As to the others, even with only one shoe ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... followed by a fresh burst of cheering and a peculiar triumphant dance on the part of the page, accompanied by the waving of boot and blacking-brush, till, in his disgust, Slegge made a rush at him from behind, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and ran him rapidly to the boot-house, sent him flying in with a savage kick, and banged the ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... round in vain for the one-horsed vehicle which had before met them. "I expect that aunt has not got our letter, Peter," Tom said. "It would probably go up to town in the coach with us, and is likely enough in the letter-bag in the boot. Well, we must have a post-chaise. Won't aunt and Rhoda be surprised; but they must be expecting us, because they will have ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty

... Commissioner, and all classes of people in that country were obliged to depose on oath their knowledge of persons worshipping as Dissenters, on penalty of fine, imprisonment, banishment, transportation, and of being sold as slaves. Persecutions of former times were surpassed, the thumbscrew and the boot were used as mild punishments, the rack dislocated the limbs of those who respected conscience, and the stake consumed their bodies to ashes. Villagers were driven to the mountains, and eighteen thousand Dissenters perished, not counting those who were accused ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green

... himself out, clambered to the box and seized the reins of the team, and away they plunged, through the racing mob of skeletons and under a hurtling storm of missiles. The stricken driver had sunk down on the boot as soon as he was wounded, but had held on to the reins and said he would manage to keep ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... bungalow, reached in a hired fly and a blinding snowstorm, she finds the whole household away. The four other week-end guests, her host and hostess and their five children, the invalid aunt who resides with the family, the three female servants and the boot-boy who lives in—all have completely vanished. The only sign of life for miles is the hero standing on the doorstep looking bewildered and troubled, as well he might, for he knows that he must spend the night in a snowstorm to avoid ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various

... at that moment a horsefly buzzing about caused Prince to stamp impatiently, and the big hoof came down on the boy's foot. Wilson sent up a cry proportionate to the possibilities of the occasion, and Grant in alarm tore off the boot and stocking. Fortunately the soil had been soft, and the only damage done was a slight bruise across the upper part ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... sailor whom he had known for so many years. With the bravado of despair he had looked with seeming indifference on the sufferings of his own men that same morning. After being submitted to the tortures of the rack, the boot, the thumbscrew, or the wheel, in accordance with the fancy of their relentless captors, they had been hanged to the outer walls and he had been forced to pass by them on his way to this hellish spot. But the real courage of the man was gone now. His ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... opposition died out of Findeisen's eyes. The strong, broad-shouldered man bowed as if under the lash; he became pale as death, and actually touched the boot with his tongue. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... produced and compared with the riding boots which the Colonel and Radnor had worn at the time. The Colonel's print was unmistakable, but I myself did not think that the alleged print of Radnor's boot tallied very perfectly with the boot itself. The jury seemed satisfied however, and Radnor was called upon for an explanation. His only conjecture was that it was the print he had left when he passed over the path on his way to ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... sleeves fell over the bare arms and reached the ground; and from the shoulders hung a train of golden-hued plush, lined with a paler shade of yellow. Bassanio and Gratiano stood aghast, and Portia simpered at them sweetly in the intervals between dispensing stage directions to the boot boy, who was clad in his best suit for the occasion, and sent to and fro to change the arrangement of the scenery. He wheeled the sofa into the centre of the room, piled it up with blue cushions, and retired to make ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... Dressy Shot. Wonderful in the boot, stocking, and gaiter department. Very tasteful, too, in the matter of caps and ties. May be flattered by an inquiry as to where he got his gaiters, and if they are an idea of his own. Sometimes bursts out into a belt covered with silver clasps. Fancy waistcoats ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various

... comrade breaks his leg or arm. What would you do? Straighten the limb gently, pulling upon the end of it quietly and firmly so that the two ends of the broken bone will not overlap. Next, retain the limb in its straightened position by such splints and other material as the boot of a carbine, a piece of board, a piece of tin gutter. Pad the material you use. Tie it to the broken limb as shown in the following illustrations. Never place a bandage over the fracture. ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey

... ground had been trampled by many feet. The boot-prints pointed to the northeast. He traced them backward to the southwest through the field, and saw where they had come from near the road, going northeast. Then, returning, he climbed the fence and followed them northward through the next field. From there, the next, beyond the road that was ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... inform you that such would be the case?" I replied, with assumed sternness of voice and manner. The boot was on the other leg, and I was not slow in recognising ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur

... was well said, my pretty one," answered Mother Rigby. "Then thou speakest like thyself, and meant nothing. Thou shalt have a hundred such set phrases, and five hundred to the boot of them. And now, darling, I have taken so much pains with thee and thou art so beautiful, that, by my troth, I love thee better than any witch's puppet in the world; and I've made them of all sorts—clay, wax, straw, sticks, night fog, morning mist, ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... too—a merchant of Bristol, and a friend of Mr. Ferguson—was executed, and several in Edinburgh, of the Scottish plotters under Argyle, among whom the principal was Baillie of Jerviswood. The torture of the boot and the thumbscrews was used there, I am sorry to say; for they had plenty of evidence without it. Of the others some evaded altogether, of whom a good number went to Holland, which was their great refuge at this time, and others again saved their lives by turning King's evidence. The Reverend ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... reciprocating polisher, substantially as described, I claim the pivoted sliding frame to support the boot or shoe constructed, arranged, and operating ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... the Italians seemed to preempt was the boot-blacking business. It may seem odd to dignify so menial an employment as a business but there is many a head of such an establishment who could show a fatter bank account than two-thirds of his clients. The next time you go into a little nook containing say fifteen chairs, figure out for ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

... my friend the boot, are wonderful people; they make the greatest show out of the smallest stock—whether of brains or ribbons—of any men in the world. A stranger could not pass through the village of Ballybreesthawn without being attracted by a shop which occupied the corner of the Market-square and the main street, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various

... bearing in their hands long and waving palms—emblems of martyrdom. The trades came next, and were led off by the various branches of the association known as the Amalgamated Trades. The plasterers made about 300, the painters 350, the boot and shoemakers mustered 1,000, the bricklayers 500, the carpenters 300, the slaters 450, the sawyers 200, and the skinners, coopers, tailors, bakers, and the other trades, made a very respectable show, both as to numbers and appearance. ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan

... his gaze beginning to wander, "trust him!" Here, chancing to espy what yet remained of the bread and meat, he immediately took another bite, and when he spoke it was in a somewhat muffled tone in consequence. "Trust him? Egad, sir, the boot's on t'other leg, for 'twixt you and me, I owe him a cool thousand, as ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... with only a small rosette with buckle on the toe. This rosette must not, however, be permitted to the large foot. It may, certainly, be worn on the place intended for the instep, when that ornamental rise in the outline of the foot is totally absent. Lines of white stitching on the boot make it look larger than it really is. The best boot for a large foot is one in which the toe-cap comes well up on the foot. Its lines are thus broken up, and the apparent length diminished. A pretty foot, on the contrary, looks better in a boot that has no toe-cap, the "upper" ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... just slipped by. I ran out and met her as she brought her horses up to the windmill to water them. She wore the boots her father had so thoughtfully taken off before he shot himself, and his old fur cap. Her outgrown cotton dress switched about her calves, over the boot-tops. She kept her sleeves rolled up all day, and her arms and throat were burned as brown as a sailor's. Her neck came up strongly out of her shoulders, like the bole of a tree out of the turf. One ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... away the boot, which was stiff and frozen, was a delicate task. When this and the deerskin sock had been removed, they saw that the foot had indeed been badly crushed. The deerskin sock ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell

... daughter Fancy?" said Bowman, as all glances present converged like wheel-spokes upon the boot in the centre ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... some uh you gay boys. And," he added, with malicious satisfaction, while he rolled Andy over and tied a perfectly unslippable knot behind, "it gives me great pleasure to hand the dose out to you, in p'ticular. If I was a mean man, I'd hand yuh the boot a few times fer luck; but I'll save that ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... not much hurt, dearest. You have broken no bones. Perhaps," I added, looking at the boot, "only a slight sprain. Let me carry you to my horse; I will walk beside ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... thoughts, his wife and his servants were turned into spies. Summoned before the dread tribunal, he was simply informed that he lay under strong suspicions of heresy. No accuser was named; but the thumb-screw, the stretching-rope, the boot and wedge, or other enginery of torture, soon supplied that defect, and, innocent ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... him in the boot-cupboard, among the gaiters and goloshes and cricket-stumps and old rackets, and they kissed and cried and hugged each other, and he said he was sorry he had been naughty. But in his heart that was the only thing he was sorry for. He was sorry ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit

... lords, and hard-hearted chapmen-folk: we ravished no maid of the tillers, we burned no cot, and taxed no husbandman's croft or acre, but defended them from their tyrants. Nevertheless we gat an ill name wide about through the kingdoms and cities; and were devils and witches to the boot of thieves and robbers in the mouths of these men; for when the rich man is hurt his wail goeth heavens high, and none may say he ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... her dress spontaneously combusted as she ran. The people attributed these and similar events, to something in the coal, or in the air, or to electricity. When the nurse-girl, Emma Davies, sat on the lap of the school mistress, Miss Maddox, her boots kept flying off, like the boot laces in The Daemon ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... Lacing the boot, I managed to push the clothes up so as to see more of the leg, but resting as the foot did on one knee, the clothes tightly between, a snatch was useless: lust made me cunning, I praised the foot (though I knew not at that time how vain some women are of their ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... were adopted, torture was used. There was the boot—a frame of iron or wood in which the leg was placed and wedges driven in until the limb was smashed. A variation of this was to place the leg in an iron boot and slowly heat it over a fire. There was the ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... in a great city, and with no way open, that he could think of, to earn money. Even the business of the boot-black, humble as it is, required a small capital to buy a brush and box of blacking. So, too, a newsboy must pay for his papers when he gets them, unless he is well known. So Sam, sitting on the door-step, felt that he was in a tight place. Where was he to get his dinner ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger

... to be looked into. He picked up a heavy boot, turned the key, and flung open the door. Punch went down the stairs in two long bounds, and a rush of cold air put out the candle. He laid it down and followed cautiously, ready to launch the boot at ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... army, that he was eldest son of the hereditary Grand Bootjack of the Empire, and the heir to that honor of which his ancestors had been very proud, having been kicked for twenty generations by one imperial foot, as they drew the boot from the other. I have heard that the old Lord Castlewood, of part of whose family these present volumes are a chronicle, though he came of quite as good blood as the Stuarts whom he served (and who as regards mere lineage are no better than a dozen English and ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... eyes is very often precious stones; An' if you treat a nigger to a dose o' cleanin'-rod 'E's like to show you everything 'e owns. When 'e won't prodooce no more, pour some water on the floor Where you 'ear it answer 'ollow to the boot (Cornet: Toot! toot!) — When the ground begins to sink, shove your baynick down the chink, An' you're sure to touch the — (Chorus) Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot! Ow the loot! . ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... he, as he threw down the boot and brush, and, placing his hands in his pockets, strutted across the floor with an air of independence—"Gorra Mighty, dem is de parts for Pompey; and I hope when you get dare you will stay, and nebber follow dat buckra back to ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft

... pocket-handkerchief, which he said he put under his pillow, or into his boot, when he went to bed at night. He had an odd way of sticking his pocket-handkerchief into his boot, 'that he might be sure to find it in the morning.' I suspect the handkerchief was carried down in the boot when it was taken to be cleaned. He was, however, perfectly certain that these two losses were not to be imputed to any carelessness of mine. He often said he was obliged to me for the attention I paid to his interests; he treated me now very civilly, and would ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... eastern coast from the river Fren'to, to the eastern tongue of land which forms the foot of the boot, to which Italy has been compared. It was a very fruitful plain, without fortresses or harbours, and was particularly adapted to grazing cattle. It was divided by the river Au'fidus, Ofanto, into Apu'lia Dau'nia, and Apu'lia Peuce'tia, ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... keep your hands in your lap. I'm going to carry my scheme through even if I have to shoot you and lots like you. My patience has run out—understand? I've been fooled and badgered and headed off and shot at for as long as I can stand. The boot's on the other leg now and whoever tries to stop me or follow me or get in my way will find all ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... weight from the lever. While the machine is running, he can withdraw the leg gradually, as each portion receives its proper amount of action, till the whole, including the foot, becomes glowing with the effect. The boot or shoe affords no impediment to the effect, and should ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... forwarding the increased production caused by machinery. It is alleged that the use of steam-hammers has displaced nine of the ten men formerly required, that with modern machinery one man can make as many bottles as six men made formerly, that in the boot and shoe trade one man can do the work five used to do, that "in the manufacture of agricultural implements 600 men now do the work which fifteen or twenty years ago required 2145, thus displacing 1515," and so forth.[176] Now in some of these ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... room. In the morning they were dry, but just as hard as stone, and you had to soap the heel of your woollen sock (which your grandmother had knitted for you, or maybe some of your aunts) before you could get your foot in, and sometimes the ears of the boot that you pulled it on by would give way, and you would have to stamp your foot in and kick the toe against the mop-board. Then you gasped and limped round, with your feet like fire, till you could get out and limber your boots ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... of the boot he draws an infant's bottle, topped by a rubber nipple and half filled ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... The boot ceased to creak, and I heard quite close to me, on the other side of the wall, which was nothing but a thin partition, an armchair being rolled across the carpet, and then a little cough, which seemed to me to vibrate with emotion. It was ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... you; thin boots will not protect the feet sufficiently, and are liable to burst or wear out; Congress boots are apt to bind the cords of the leg, and thus make one lame; short-toed boots or shoes hurt the toes; loose ones do the same by allowing the foot to slide into the toe of the boot or shoe; low-cut shoes continually fill with dust, sand, ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould

... untying the unlucky stocking; and, whipping off the boot, he soon made sure that no ligaments were broken. Then he put on the boot and the woollen sock, being careful to tie it in front over the instep, and whipping out his big handkerchief he proceeded to bandage the ankle in a truly scientific way. "Now, then, Mrs. ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney

... of virile strength was in vain. The boot did not budge. Only a low moan of suffering ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann

... Old Dolliver as to their probable greeting, and they took this all in good part. They disembarked with their bags and parcels, while Tony Foyle appeared to help Old Dolliver down with the heavier luggage that was strapped upon the roof and in the boot behind. Mary Cox continued to line out the doggerel, inventing some telling hits as she went along, while the Upedes came ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson

... lives at leisure, and making a dream of our latest experiences, kept us tranquil and incommunicative. Occasionally we let fall a sigh fathoms deep, then by-and-by began blowing a bit of a wanton laugh at the end of it. I raised my foot and saw the boot on it, which accounted for an uneasy sensation setting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... The second one was thick set, and weighed about two hundred. I had him down, and my boot was on his neck, and I was knocking two more down when I was hit. The thick set one will have the mark of boot heels on his throat. Tell the police when I'm gone, about the boot heel marks.' ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck

... the heel," Shorty answered. "Watch me. I'll cave his ribs in. I'll kick his jaw off. Take that! An' that! Wisht I could give you the boot instead of the moccasin. ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... deserving of a careful description, but it would be too technical perhaps, and there is no romance in the handling of wet hides, the scraping, currying, stretching and pommelling which even the thickness, prepare the surface and develop the pliability of the leather. Near this is the boot- and shoe-making, sewing and cable-screw wire machines, but none for pegging. Sewing-machines, copies of the various American forms, occupy the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... looks down on the Thames as it finally leaves the county, of which it has formed the northern boundary for more than one hundred miles. The sweet river—for in spite of all pollution it is still sweet at Windsor—has run all along the top of the boot and down the instep, and along the toes, taking Oxford, Abingdon, Wallingford, Henley, Reading and Maidenhead in its way, with other places historically interesting in a small way over here, but which would scarcely ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... said Wallis. "I consider him much improved. But you see he's succeeded; he's the earl now, and Lord Liftore—and a menseful, broad shouldered man to the boot of the bargain. He used to be such ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... similar white frill finished the gown at the neck. His boots were black velvet, with white buttons; they were about a yard long, tapering to a point, and were tied up to the garter by silver chains, a pattern resembling a church window being cut through the upper portion of the boot. These very fashionable and most uncomfortable articles were known as cracowes, having come over from Germany with the late Queen Anne. In the young man's hand was a black velvet cap, covered by a spreading plume of apple-green feathers. Round the waist, outside ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... at the door saluted in military fashion with drawn sword. Ludwig hurried into the house. In the hall he encountered the little Laczko, who, at sight of the visitor, dropped the boot and brush he held in his hands, and disappeared through a door at the end of the hall. Vavel followed him, and found himself in the kitchen, where the widow of Satan Laczi also dropped to the floor the cooking-utensil she had ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... work rings true and deserves to be read by many at the present time when miners are so far from being victims of "the block"—the employers' device for starving out a "difficult" man—that they look like fitting the boot to another leg. One is made to realise their anxiety to get rid ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 14, 1920 • Various

... have me talk with him myself? For your sake I will risk a black eye and go to him. He may be rough with me, he may throw the boot-jack at my head, but he will have to swallow the truth in spite of the stomach-ache it gives him, and let you rest in peace!—Is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... demoralized that he could only faintly whisper, "What does Charlie want?" He died from the effect of this accident, but we will not dismiss him without another story in which he figures: He had the bad habit of nipping at the leg of a person whose trousers happened to be hitched above the top of the boot. One day Mr. Whittier was being worn out by a prosy harangue from a visitor who sat in a rocking-chair, and swayed back and forth as he talked. As he rocked, Whittier noticed that his trousers were reaching the point of danger, and now at length he had something that ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard

... swiftly for Mavis; weeks glided into months, months into seasons. When the anniversary of the day on which she had commenced work at the boot factory came round, she could not believe that she had been at Melkbridge a year. When she had padded the streets of London in quest of work, she had many times told herself that she had only to secure a weekly ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... there was nothing for Audrey to do but to go on with her breakfast, for she knew that her grandmother did not like to be questioned, and, after all, it might only be that the laundress had torn a sheet, or that the boot-boy had been rude to the cook. Granny was always greatly upset if people did not do ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... very often precious stones; An' if you treat a nigger to a dose o' cleanin'-rod 'E's like to show you everything 'e owns. When 'e won't prodooce no more, pour some water on the floor Where you 'ear it answer 'ollow to the boot (Cornet: Toot! toot!)— When the ground begins to sink, shove your baynick down the chink, An' you're sure to touch the— (Chorus) Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling

... leg to his servant, and leaning on the saddle of his horse, tried, by listening attentively, to understand the subject of the colloquy; but he knew nothing of German, and could not comprehend the dispute. Grandchamp, who, still holding the boot, had also been listening very seriously, suddenly burst into loud laughter, holding his sides in a manner not ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... seen in the clarinet, where the reed is single and beats against the mouthpiece. Of course, an artificial mouthpiece has to be provided for our organ-pipe, but this is called the boot. See Figure 19, which shows the construction of a reed organ-pipe. A is the boot containing a tube called the eschallot B, partly cut away and the opening closed by a brass tongue C, which vibrates under pressure of the wind. D is the wire by which the tongue is tuned; E the body of the pipe which acts as ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller

... contemptuously. "I fancy the boot has been on the other leg. Who you are, my dear young lady, I do not know, but upon my word you are the most welcome companion a man ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... graceful; but for actual practice, they would serve only to catch the rain, and to gall the legs of the wearer. Their descendant, the top-boot, has reformed itself wonderfully, and nearly all the inconvenience has been got rid of. Still, the brown colour of the top, which is no longer the inside of the boot turned down, as it was once, is an anomaly, and the boot itself ought to be merged in the plain single-coloured boot which is now much used on the Continent, though in England patronized only by the Meltonians. For positive use, the boot ought to come ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... cavalry advancing to the attack had first to cross a broad stretch of uneven country as bare as the back of the hand, and swept from end to end by machine-guns. They sank over the boot-tops into the sand at every step, they were hampered by their equipment, and the blazing August sun made their rifles almost too hot ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... return of some trifling events which nevertheless had no relation to her. The most important was the arrival of the "Hirondelle" in the evening. Then the landlady shouted out, and other voices answered, while Hippolyte's lantern, as he fetched the boxes from the boot, was like a star in the darkness. At mid-day Charles came in; then he went out again; next she took some beef-tea, and towards five o'clock, as the day drew in, the children coming back from school, dragging their wooden shoes along the pavement, knocked the clapper of the shutters with their rulers ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert



Words linked to "The boot" :   instrument of torture



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