1876 examples of thumbing in sentences

The gentleman was not in the least bored who might have been and was seen on that wintry afternoon in Nineteen hundred, lounging with one shoulder to a wall of the dingy salesroom and idly thumbing a catalogue of effects about to be put up at auction; but his insouciance was so unaffected that the inevitable innocent bystander might have been pardoned for perceiving in him a pitiable victim of the utterest ennui.

"Lieutenant Boggs," said Captain Wells, thickly, "take yo' thumb out o' my mouth.

Scarcely was the locket well in my hand before I had it undone, finding a thumb-nick whereby, after a little persuasion, the back, though rusted, could be opened on a hinge.

Then, one day, a maid mowing in the garden saw Tom Thumb running in and out between the blades of grass, so she cut the grass, in great haste, just where he chanced to be, tied it all in a bundle, and, without anyone knowing, threw it to the cows.

The following morning the cow was killed, but fortunately in the cutting up the knife did not touch Tom Thumb, who was put aside with the meat that was to be made into sausages.

In his own bedroom he undressed slowly and afterward stood for a long time under the shower, rubbing himself down with the care of an athlete, thumbing the soreness of the wild ride out of the lean, sinewy muscles, for his was a made strength built up in the gymnasium and used on the wrestling mat, the cinder path, and the football field.

"People gets into foolish habits on the range," he said, thumbing the strong rope curiously, and so doing, spreading out the noose.

Cheese follows, with the alternatives of port wine and porter; and all this weary time the servants have been knocking your head about, thumbing your plate, or pouring lobster sauce into your pockets!Sharpe's Mag. *

There, mounting her chair, she scrubbed the top shelf with her soapy rag, placed the box in its corner, left the hall closet smelling of cleanliness, with never a hint of lavender to betray its secret treasure. Were Rose to die and go to Heaven, there to spend her days thumbing a golden harp, her hands, by force of habit, would, drop harp-strings at quarter to six, to begin laying a celestial and unspotted table-cloth for supper.

" Then came Fid, followed by the negro, rolling along the deck, and thumbing his hat with one hand, while the other sought an awkward retreat in a part of his vestments.

"To lame the shoulder, divide the chine bone, cut off the thumb, pierce the diaphragm, or to tear off the hair and fracture the skull, was each punished by a fine of twenty shillings.

"For pulling the hair so that the bone become visible, for piercing the ear or one cheek, for cutting off the thumb nail, for the first double tooth, for wounding the nose with the fist, for wounding the elbow, for breaking a rib, or for wounding the vertebrae, three shillings.

Little Jack Horner, sat in a corner, Eating a Christmas pie, He pulled out a plum with his finger and thumb, And said what a good boy am I. Of all the poems that delight our infancy, there is no one perhaps which makes a more lasting impression on the memory and the imagination, than the preceding.

Horner, it must be admitted, with all his excellence, was too fond of good eating; it is in vain to deny it; his deliberately pulling out a plum with his finger and thumb, shows the epicure, not excited by the voracity of hunger, but evidently aiming to protract his enjoyment.

The King having been afflicted for some time with a violent pain in his thumb, for which his regular medical attendants could afford him no relief, he sought the assistance of Ward, whose famous pills and drops were then in great estimation.

On being admitted to his Majesty's presence, he, of course, proceeded to examine the royal thumb; which he suddenly wrenched with such violence, that the King called him a cursed rascal, and condescended to kick his shins.

He soon found, however, that the doctor, had as it were, magically relieved his thumb from pain: and so grateful did he feel to Ward, whom he now termed his Esculapius, that he prevailed on him to accept a handsome carriage and horses, and shortly afterwards, presented his nephew, who subsequently became a general, with an ensigncy in the guards.

He affected to busy himself with the mechanism that had just been readjusted, looking at it wisely, thumbing a valve, though with a care to leave things precisely as they were.

Akbar the furrier squats on the floor Sucking an Eastern pipe, Thumbing the lakhs that he's made of yore, Lakhs which creep to the long-dreamed crore In a ledger of Western type.

In winter he would go to Valencia to hear the operas praised by the newspapers, and in one corner of his shop he had heaps of novels and illustrated magazines, much mildewed and softened by the damp, and their leaves worn through from continual thumbing by customers.

He was so busy with Party affairs, and thumbing his big books upstairs, that he did not know how things were going at home.

He ceased rummaging among the bundles of documents piled up on the bench, stopped thumbing papers so as to hide his perturbation, and waving the first sheet that came to his hand, he went on.

His own amusements were confined to the chace; those of his sister to thumbing the Psalter, and chanting its contents: the young lady had no solace but tears.

A solid shot struck No. 5 gun on the hub, killing Cannoneer No. 2, who was thumbing the vent, and filling No. 1 gunner with splinters of iron, whirling him into eternity amid a fountain of dirt and flying hub-tires.

In these two books which Des Esseintes was thumbing, Barbey had lost all prudence, given full rein to his steed, and galloped at full speed over roads to their farthest limits.

1876 examples of  thumbing  in sentences