A dry bob (literally = a blow or fillip that does not break the skin) is an intensely bitter taunt, cf.

Ada's cruel taunt, directed with such a sneer at the Guerin sisters that every girl knew whom she meant, had sent Betty's temper to the boiling point.

He was not regularly articled as a Government-tool!Perhaps the most pleasing and striking of all Mr. Southey's poems are not his triumphant taunts hurled against oppression, are not his glowing effusions to Liberty, but those in which, with a mild melancholy, he seems conscious of his own infirmities of temper, and to feel a wish to correct by thought and time the precocity and sharpness of his disposition.

More slowly soon her heart beat, and she laugh'd, Like echo, at the scornful taunts and jeers; "Scoff on!"

This feeling is greatly increased by the occasional taunts and sneers we see directed against us in foreign scientific works.

and other more opprobrious taunts.

But none of these things would restore her maiden pride; would remove from her the stain of his false love, or rebut the insolent taunt of the eyes to which she had bowed herself captive.

"'Did you'ns leave a lock of your hair with old Mas'r Lincoln?' "'Come down to Dixie to marry niggers, have ye?' and scores of taunts more insulting and obscene.

They soon proceeded to mutual taunts and menaces, and Flavius called aloud for his horse and his arms, that he might dash across the river and attack his brother; nor would he have been checked from doing so had not the Roman general Stertinius run up to him and forcibly detained him.

Another Pathan rushing forward, with uplifted knife held as a sword, was met by a sudden low fencing-lunge and fell with a hideous wound, and then, whirling his weapon like a claymore in an invisibly rapid Maltese cross of flashing steel, the man who had been Ross-Ellison drove his enemies before him, whirled about, and established himself in the opposite corner, and spat pungent Border taunts at the infuriated crowd.

Loest turned away; hard as the random taunt and remark of his opponent was, yet it recalled him to a sense of his duty, and his forgetfulness of the fact that he had not hitherto asked of God for special help in this circumstance.

They knew nothing of his failures and disappointments, and were more sympathizing than the coarse and ribald men whose rude taunts he had just heard, and to whose admiration he was as indifferent as to their sarcasm.

Fescennina, etc.: the rude Fescennine farce grew from rites like these, where rustic taunts were hurled in alternate verse; and the pleasing license, tolerated from year to year, gambolled, etc. Page 317, l. 18.

And, when his age attempts its task in vain, With ruthless taunts, of lazy poor complain.

Commonly also satirical taunts do owe their seeming piquancy, not to the speaker or his words, but to the subject, and the hearers; the matter conspiring with the bad nature or the vanity of men who love to laugh at any rate, and to be pleased at the expense of other men's repute; conceiting themselves extolled by the depression of their neighbour, and hoping to gain by his loss.

And look at last, how of most wretched wights He taken was, betrayd, and false accused; 240 How with most scornfull taunts and fell despights, He was revyld, disgrast, and foule abused; How scourgd, how crownd, how buffeted, how brused; And, lastly, how twixt robbers crucifyde, With bitter wounds through hands, through feet, and syde!

Thus were the officers of the king of Sweden, the meanest of whom were fit to be generals in any other army, subjected to the servile taunts, and insolent behaviour of wretches undeserving to be ranked among the human species.

His mood Is fitful; stately now, and sad; anon, Full of a hurried mirth; courteous awhile, And mild; then bursting, on a sudden, forth, Into sharp, biting taunts.

So was Louis converted; and though the lips of the scorner Spared not in after-years the subtle taunt and derision, (What time, meeker grown, his heart held his hand from its answer,) Not the less lofty and pure her love and her faith that had saved him, Not the less now discerned was her inspiration from heaven

It was, however, an unjust taunt, for no one had done more than Sybel himself in his historical work to point out the necessity, though he recognised the injustice, of the part Prussia had taken in the partition of Poland; nobody had painted so convincingly as he had, the political and social demoralisation of Poland.

The sober trader at a tatter'd cloak Wakes from his dream, and labours for a joke; With brisker air the silken courtiers gaze, And turn the varied taunt a thousand ways.

"It's sure a surprisin' day an' pleasant" he finished, emphasizing "surprisin'" and "pleasant" till Carolyn June could have sworn there was a veiled taunt in the words he spoke.

(throw him out!) is another angry taunt which I can distinguish in the bedlam.

This vindictive taunt was based on truth.

He had almost screamed with horror when de Chavasse thus brutally uttered Lady Sue's name: he had seen the young girl almost sway on her feet, as she smothered the cry of agony and horror which at her guardian's callous taunt had risen to her lips.