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Wormed   Listen
adjective
Wormed  adj.  Penetrated by worms; injured by worms; worm-eaten; as, wormed timber.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wormed" Quotes from Famous Books



... neither grief nor pain nor joy—only an unconquerable desire to see and hear everything. Though he had had no sleep the whole night, his body felt light; when he was crushed and prevented from advancing, he elbowed his way through the crowd and adroitly wormed himself into the front place; and not for a moment did his vivid quick eye remain at rest. At the examination of Jesus before Caiaphas, in order not to lose a word, he hollowed his hand round his ear, and nodded his ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... want him to remain with her alone. He wondered how long Ramsey would be staying in Paris, and what effect his presence would have on his intercourse with Madame de Corantin. Would he be able to see as much of her or would she drop him in favour of Ramsey. The thought tortured him, but it wormed its way more and more into his brain. Bobby had very little confidence in his powers of pleasing; it was a common experience of his to be thrown over in favour of men much less attractive to women than Ramsey. It was true that hitherto he had not much cared, and when he had been given the ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson

... forward. In 1797 the French made a lodgment in Corfu; and, agreeably to their general spirit of intrigue, they had made advances to Ali Pacha, and to all other independent powers in or about Epirus. Amongst other states, in an evil hour for that ill-fated city, they wormed themselves into an alliance with Prevesa; and in the following year their own quarrel with Ali Pacha gave that crafty robber a pretence, which he had long courted in vain, for attacking the place with his overwhelming cavalry, before they could agree upon the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... together, gayly chatting, went the two children, along the cobble-paved streets of the ancient town, past old churches that had been sacked and pillaged by the very ancestors of one of them, taking short cuts through narrow passages that twisted and wormed their way between, and sometimes beneath, century-old stone houses; across the flower-market, where faint odors of dying violets and crushed lilies-of-the-valley still clung to the bare wooden booths; and so, finally, to the door of a tall building where, ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... pen; a bullet whizzed by; he turned the corner; he whisked over the wall, back into the water pen. Shouts, curses, the sound of rushing feet without the wall. Pringle crouched in the deep shadow of the wall, groped his way to the long row of watering troughs, and wormed himself under the upper trough, where the creaking windmill and the splashing of water from the supply pipe would drown out the ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... Netherlander, John of Calcar, near Cleves—in which he has dared to prove that Galen's anatomy was at fault throughout, and that he had been describing a monkey's inside when he had pretended to be describing a man's; and thus, by impudence and quackery, he has wormed himself—this Netherlander, a heretic at heart, as all Netherlanders are, to God as well as to Galen—into the confidence of the late Emperor Charles V., and gone campaigning with him as one of his physicians, anatomising human bodies even on the battle-field, and defacing the likeness of Deity; ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... tell you more," she went on, sitting quite erect now on the bed, "your mother thinks she is doing a fine thing to get all her family wormed in here in ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney

... Grandma Ridge possessed traces of a feminine nature.... And Horatio! He came in late from his business, scorning to pay attention to the "women's doings," sneaked up the back stairs and donned his Sunday broadcloth coat, then wormed his way cautiously into the press to see the fun. One of the more exquisite moments of the day, preserved by Sally Norton and widely circulated among Milly's friends, was the picture of the little man facing the majestic Mrs. Bernhard Bowman—she of the ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... up for lost time, he overran and missed his tackle entirely and the second's back came speeding up the field near the side-line, a hastily-formed interference guarding him well. Ten yards, fifteen, twenty, and then Carmine wormed through and brought the runner ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour

... Archie. "I beg your pardon," he said, struggling to be composed, "but because you have wormed yourself into my ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... confidence as regards the treasure hidden on the Northumberland coast. A share of the proceeds was promised them: they secured a third, trustworthy Chinaman in the person of one Ah Wong, an associate of Chuh's, and the yawl, duly equipped, left the Thames and went northward. By this time, Wing had wormed himself completely into Chuh's confidence, and without even discovering whether Chuh was or was not the actual murderer of Salter Quick (he believed him to be and believed Wong to be the murderer of Noah, at Saltash) he had found out that Chuh was in possession ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... must be artful to have wormed his way into the favor of the strange pair. He seems to be ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger

... hear the lines, 'Trust me not at all, or all in all?'" I continued to torture him. "It was Tennyson who made Vivien say those words to Merlin. She was deceiving him, and meant to ruin him when she'd wormed out his secret; for that reason, it isn't a very appropriate quotation. But, otherwise, it's particularly so. If you trusted me for yourself, you'd trust me for others, too. It's the same thing—or else ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... listening to the voices of the occupants and striving to locate Sipsu. Evidently there were many in the tent, and from the sounds they were in high excitement. At last he heard the girl's voice, and crawled around so that only the moose-hide divided them. Then burrowing in the snow, he slowly wormed his head and shoulders underneath. When the warm inner air smote his face, he stopped and waited, his legs and the greater part of his body still on the outside. He could see nothing, nor did he dare lift his head. On one side of him was a skin bale. He could smell it, though ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... answer him, but she let him lead her whither he would. And they came breathless to the rocky outcropping through which the pack trail wormed its way farther down the hill. There he let her stop, for he knew that they had passed around the upper edge of the fire, and were safe unless the wind changed. He helped her upon a high, flat-topped boulder that overlooked the balsam thicket and manzanita ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... the edge of the parade-ground, and was defying the regiment to come on. The regiment was not anxious to comply, for there is small honour in being shot by a fellow-private. Only Corporal Slane, rifle in hand, threw himself down on the ground, and wormed his way ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... pants in a Polish sweatshop, and lived for two days in New York's most rococo hotel. I took a graduate course in Anglo Saxon at Columbia University, and one in lamp-shade making at Wanamaker's: wormed into a Broadway musical show as wardrobe girl, and went out on a self-appointed newspaper assignment to interview the mother of the richest ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... recorded from mere tradition at a much later date, it still has a ring of truth, or at least of probability, about it, which is wholly wanting to the earlier legends. If we are not certain as to the facts, we can at least accept them as symbolical of the manner in which the West Saxon power wormed its way over the upper basin of the Thames, and crept gradually along the southern ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... between Egaja and Esoon, he came back from one of these quests and wanted me to come and see something, very quietly; I went, and we crept down into a rocky ravine, on the other side of which lay one of the outermost Egaja plantations. When we got to the edge of the cleared ground, we lay down, and wormed our way, with elaborate caution, among a patch of Koko; Wiki first, I following in ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... I wormed my way up close to him on the grain-box, so that he had to hold me to keep from falling off the end. "Listen to me," I commanded. "You are my True Love and my Kaikobad and my Man-God and my Soul-Mate! And no baby is ever going to come between me ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer

... the crafty process of sociable chat, by which, as he fancies, the man with the brass-plate wormed into him, and made such a fool of him as insensibly to persuade him to waive, in his exceptional case, that general law of distrust systematically applied to the race. He revolves, but cannot comprehend, the operation, still less the operator. Was the man a trickster, it must be more ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... to loneliness; he had laughed in the face of things that had driven other men mad. But to-night there seemed to be something about him that he had never known before, something that wormed its way deep down into his soul and made his pulse beat faster. He thought of Pelliter on his fever bed, of Scottie Deane, and then of himself. After all, was there much to choose between the ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood

... not wormed under the surface for some indirect answer that would betray what he intended to do. She had asked exactly what she wanted to know, with ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... so fast, your worship! we must wait for someone,' answered the old woman. 'It's to be got from someone else—wormed out—screwed and twisted ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... myself every evening this last week with grog and tobacco smoke at the "Compton Arms," in the company of the castle servants, and if the calves' heads had known anything essential, I fancy I should have wormed it out of them. They have, however, kindly furnished me with a scrawl of introduction to the establishment now in town, some of whom I shall have the honor to meet, in the character of an out-and-out liberal sporting gentleman, at the "Albemarle Arms" this ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... it down to nerves and notoriety; but took refuge in a private hotel. One followed me, engaged the next room, set a watch on all my movements; another came in by the window to murder me in my bed; no party to that, the first one nevertheless turned the outrage to account, wormed himself into my friendship on the strength of it, and lured me hither, an easy prey. And here was the gang of them, to meet me! No wonder Rattray had not let me see him off at the station; no wonder I had not been ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... tedious, involved, but a stalemate. Lying on his belly, Denver wormed as close as he dared to the break of slope outside the door. There, he fired snap shots at everything that moved on the slopes. Everything that moved on the slopes made a point of returning the gesture. Some shots came from places he had seen ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen

... returning to work. He didn't want to go to the country: knew he would die after two days there: was positive he was as strong and as able to work as he ever had been: and, in short, he wouldn't go. Watson wormed the truth out of him after an hour's private talk. "I'm just crazy about keeping up my lessons with Mister Epstein," said William, finally; "I feel that I can't afford to miss one; I wanter be something, Tommy, and I'm ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks

... of our prow, swam the helmeted Silver-heads; side by side, in uniform ranks, like an army. Then came the Boneetas, with their flashing blue flanks. Then, like a third distinct regiment, wormed and twisted through the water like Archimedean screws, the quivering Wriggle-tails; followed in turn by the rank and file of the Trigger-fish—so called from their quaint dorsal fins being set in their backs with a comical curve, as if at half-cock. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... relieved by the Rutland Rifles, and a dog weary battered remnant of the battalion crawled back to camp in a sunken road a mile in the rear. One or two found bivouacs left by the Rutlands, but the majority dropped where they halted. My friend Patrick found a bivouac, wormed into it and went to sleep. The next thing he remembers was the roof of his abode caving in with the weight of two men struggling violently. Patrick extricated himself somehow and rolled out into the grey dawn to ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various

... had scraped together enough to get back to London on the chance of obtaining some expert commission; practically he possessed nothing in the world beyond the clothes on his back, and the contents of two old carpet-bags—these admissions, by degrees, were wormed from him. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... Laird, which were annually presented at Christmas with great form. The aged sibyls blessed the bridal bed of the Laird when he married, and the cradle of the heir when born. The men repaired her ladyship's cracked china, and assisted the Laird in his sporting parties, wormed his dogs, and cut the ears of his terrier puppies. The children gathered nuts in the woods, and cranberries in the moss, and mushrooms on the pastures, for tribute to the Place. These acts of voluntary service, and acknowledgments ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... their presence was not required, and they retreated precipitately, taking different exits. One swam to the grassy edge of the islet, poked his head above water under the covert of some drooping weeds, listened motionless for some minutes, then wormed himself out among the long grasses and lay basking, hidden from all the world but the whirling hawk overhead. The other, of a more industrious mould, swam off toward the upper end of the pond where, as he knew, there was work to ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... a light buckboard bearing Welton and Bob dashed in the early morning across the plains, wormed its way ingeniously through gaps in the foothills, and slowed to a walk as it felt the grades of the first long low slopes. The air was warm with the sun imprisoned in the pockets of the hills. High chaparral, scrub oaks, and scattered, unkempt digger pines threw their ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... And Sundown wormed his length between the wires and straightened up, extending a tanned and hairy paw. "Shake, pardner! Say, you're ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... Tower and his Lieutenant were at first officially kind and friendly, extending many privileges to win his confidence. If there had been any treason in Sir Walter they would most certainly have wormed it out of him, for his eyes at first were not fully open. He still believed in the honour and fidelity of his mock friends ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens

... carefully, we attacked the problem at its most available angle and slid from view. We literally dived beneath the brush. For more than two hours we wormed our way down the face of the mountain, crawling like moles at the base of the overhanging thickets of poison oak, wild lilac, chamise, sage, manzanita, hazel and buckthorn. At last we reached the depth of the canyon and, finding a little water, we bathed ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... How she wormed herself into the confidence of the Cardinal de Rohan, a man of the world and of education, would seem wholly unaccountable but for one fact. The Prince Primate had faith in Cagliostro and his nostrums, and when an individual has recourse to astrologers ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... and the leaves of the slim tree above him were never stirred by a wandering wind. Yet now and again there came from the darkness a faintly fetid odor. The evening wore on and still he slept, until at length in the silence of the night a strange huge creature wormed its way steadily out of its lair amid the trees, and drew near the sleeping man to devour him fiercely. But the horse neighed vehemently and beat the ground with his hoofs and waked his master. Then the hideous monster vanished; and the man, aroused from his sleep, saw nothing, although ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews

... Uncle Oliver; but I disposed of that. However, I dare say it made her less willing to throw me overboard! Anyway, she smoothed me and nattered me, till I ended by agreeing that she has no choice but to remove instanter from the Terrace, and forbid me her abode! And, as I said, she wormed a promise from ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... trail ahead, and when they reached it Clee grabbed his partner's arm and pulled him off to one side, where, panting with their sudden exertion, they wormed up to the brow and peeped ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... Street, a dull red glow, like the mouth of a fiery cave, widening with every minute as though to swallow them. There was, indeed, a disconcerting crowd gathered round the chief entrance, but Robert was like a general, cool and vigorous, strung up to the finest pitch of cunning. He wormed his way under the ropes, he edged and insinuated himself between the idle and good-natured onlookers, with Cosgrave, tossed and buffeted, but still in tow, struggling in the backwash. At last they ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... one, save for this somewhat unpleasant subject, yet despite Thayor's kindly optimism in regard to Bergstein, owing purely to his excellent recommendation, Holcomb felt a distrust of the mysterious stranger who had wormed his way into Big Shanty. He could not help being personally convinced that the vice-president of the Canadian company was either a rascal or a man of poor judgment. It was also possible that the said vice-president had never seen ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... enemy and prevent surprise, they loitered about the camp and in the trenches, or amused themselves by firing at the fort from behind stumps and logs. Some, in imitation of the French, dug little trenches for themselves, in which they wormed their way towards the rampart, and now and then picked off an artillery-man, not without loss on their own side. On the afternoon of the fifth, Montcalm invited them to a council, gave them belts of wampum, and mildly remonstrated with them. "Why ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... was for a lad of ten who had known only the placid brook in the open meadow and the amiable moods of its people! How many a boyish shout I muffled as I made my cautious way along that boisterous stream and pitted my wits against its wary dwellers! I wormed through an abatis of laurel; I scampered over the bared and tangled roots of a great oak; I reached a shelf of pebbly beach. Around it the water swept over moss-clad rocks into a deep pool; above it the arched limbs broke and let in the warm sunlight, making ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... commenced his studies at law there, with a view of qualifying himself for a seat on the judicial bench of Upper Canada, to which he was vain and ambitious enough to aspire. He at length got access to the Governor-General, Sir James Craig, into whose confidence he so wormed himself as to obtain a letter of recognition and recommendation to visit Massachusetts and other eastern States to ascertain and report upon the state of feeling there in regard to the sympathy of those States ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... boy that is put forth to shame us kings and nobles?' said King Mark, and his hand sought his dagger as he disappeared among the crowd and wormed his way towards where stood young Arthur. But Sir Ector and Sir Kay, seeing the threatening looks of all, had quickly ranged themselves beside young Arthur, and with them went Sir Bedevere, Sir Baudwin and Sir Ulfius, three noble lords who had ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... the ghost of a chance of a lion getting in; but at night, as I looked out, it seemed frail indeed. Some dry grass was piled inside, with blankets spread over it to prevent rustling; and when night came we three, myself and two gunbearers, wormed our way in and then pulled some pieces of brush into the opening after us. The rifles were sighted on the bait while it was still daylight and at a spot where the expected lion might appear. ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

... that was for Helen, and hard work! The ground bore twigs and dead branches, which had to be carefully crawled over; and lying flat, as was necessary, it took prodigious effort to drag her body inch by inch. Like a huge snake, Dale wormed his ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... perceived that while his eyes had been turned on Hanky, two burly vergers had wormed their way through the crowd and taken their stand close to his two brothers. Then he understood, and understood also ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... subdued by a combination of fear of the real beast and superstitious fear of the fabulous werwolf or loup-garou,[4] but the next moment I pulled myself together, mastered my trembling limbs, rolled softly out of my blankets, and gun in hand wormed my way toward the spot where Big Pete lay, determined to sell my life dearly. With Big Pete beside me, now that I was thoroughly awake, I would fight all the werwolves of the old world and all the loup-garous ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... or Floyd," remarked Nort, as he wormed himself into a hollow place behind a rock, not far from ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker

... slept, the sleep of total exhaustion, hoping that a rest would make the shimmering, indefinite picture hold still long enough for him to study it. And as he drifted into troubled sleep a greater and more pressing question wormed ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse

... Mrs Penhaligon, inverting one bedroom chair on another, "is a kind o' German, and by all accounts the p'isonest. A Spy is worse nor even a Prooshian, because he pretends he isn't till he've wormed hisself into your confidence, an' then he comes out in his true colours, an' the next thing you know you're stabbed in the back in the dark." Mrs Penhaligon might miss to be lucid in explanation, but never ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... closely, and forbade all gambling in my hotel. But I got some idea of its fruits from the cases brought to me for surgical treatment from the faro and monte tables. Gambling at Cruces, and on the Isthmus generally, was a business by which money was wormed out of the gold-seekers and gold-finders. No attempt was made to render it attractive, as I have seen done elsewhere. The gambling-house was often plainer than our hotels; and but for the green tables, with their piles of money and gold-dust, watched over by a well-armed determined banker, ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... he get one?' 'Soon.' 'Where would he go to get one?' 'To the Sarebus river.' I mention these particulars in detail, as I think, had their practice extended to taking the head of any defenseless traveler, or any Malay surprised in his dwelling or boat, I should have wormed the secret ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... The man wormed to the edge of the couch, and slipped off to the floor on his knees. By means of a chair he drew himself to his feet. Still clinging to the chair, supporting most of his weight on it, he shoved it to the door and out upon the ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... part was the cavern. We had to crawl in upon our hands and knees, and in some places to lie out almost flat. As my friend the cur insisted upon going first, I could not help thinking that the back view of him, as he wormed his way along the low gallery, was not exactly sacerdotal. Sometimes we passed over smooth sand—evidently left by a stream that once issued here; at other times over small stones, which were bad for the knees. We kept a keen ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... and after an hour's argument got his way. The man, who had wormed the secret out of Tomaso, had only a general idea of the situation of the cave; but he confessed to a certain familiarity with the mountains. He was not persuaded to go until Sturges had promised to send not only himself ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... him occasionally during the past eighteen years, though rarely. As a matter of fact, Fay's greenhouses lay on that part of the shore of Thorley's Pond most out of the way of the pedestrian. Only of late had new roads wormed themselves up the steep northern bank of the pond, bringing from the city well-to-do, country-loving souls who desired space and sunshine. It was a satisfaction to Thor's father, Archie Masterman, that only the best type of suburban residence was going up ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... being barred so strongly at an instant's warning, that nothing less than a battering ram could drive it inward. The windows were too narrow to admit the passage of the most elongated redskin that ever wormed himself into the camp of an enemy. The structure was long and low, with an upper story, in which the cowboys slept whenever it ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis

... took immediate advantage of the lie of the ground to snake forward unobserved for another hundred feet. There was a dip from the foot of the tree, down which he rolled into the sage below. He wormed his way through the thick scrub brush to the edge of a dry creek, into the bed of which he slid. Then swiftly, his body bent beneath the level of the bank, he ran forward in the sand. He moved noiselessly, eyes and ears alert to aid him, and climbed the bank at a point where ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... "She's up at the house now. Come on." But that didn't suit him. He explained that she wouldn't look at him when the others were around, and that she slid off and wormed out of his way, so he couldn't get at her, anyhow. Just like a girl, wasn't it—not to face the music? Well, anyway, he'd cooked up a plan that he wanted me to do, and I promised I would. He wanted me to get Peggy to go up the river to their former spooning-resort (only he put it differently), ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... done can be done again. Delilah wormed it out of Samson: why can't Sally Stubbs worm it ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... expected the wire fence. It was impossible to climb and more difficult to get under. However, she found one place where the ground dipped, and wormed her way under the fence in most undignified fashion. It is perfectly certain that had Jane's family seen her then and been told that she was doing this remarkable thing for a woman she had never seen before that day, named Mary O'Shaughnessy, and also for a certain red-haired person of whom ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... prediction was fulfilled. He appeared promptly at the session's opening, and was the most insistent and persistent member of the "Third House," as the paid legislative agents were called. Most of the men who wormed their way here and there operated craftily and tried to be diplomatic. Spinney strove by effrontery. As usual, he made the country members his especial prey. The story of his knavery at the State Convention had been smothered in the interests of the party. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... to stalk them for a long-range shot, and slipping off my pony, I flattened out upon the ground. On hands and knees, and sometimes at full length, I wormed my way through the grass for one hundred yards. The cover ended there and I must shoot or come into full view of the gazelles. They were so far away that the front sight entirely covered the animals, and to increase the difficulty, both were walking slowly. The first bullet struck low and ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... like La Croix, she, like him, concocted the same subtle poison that killed and left no trace behind it; and so she helped in this way profligate sons to get early possession of their inheritance, and depraved wives to another and younger husband. Desgrais wormed his way into her secret; she confessed all; the Chambre Ardente condemned her to be burned alive, and the sentence was executed ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... bolt upright in bed. For an Idea concerning Mr. Bennet, no longer prefixed the Wonderful, had wormed itself into her brain without her having the slightest conception how it had got there, and now it presented itself to her, ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... to win the affections of my people, and to promote unison among the heritors, to be of as little expense to the parish as possible; but by this time the manse had fallen into a sore state of decay—the doors were wormed on the hinges—the casements of the windows chattered all the winter, like the teeth of a person perishing with cold, so that we had no comfort in the house; by which, at the urgent instigations of Mrs Balwhidder, I was obligated to represent our ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... general questions, but by degrees I got at everything about his family history and the small events of his boyhood. Some of the points touched upon were delicate, but I put a good bold face on my most audacious questions, and so I wormed out a great deal that was new concerning my subject. He had been written about considerably, and the public wouldn't have been satisfied without some new facts; and these I meant to have, and I ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... son not three hours under the mould! Brought up in France as a youngster he was, and this I s'pose is what comes of reading Voltaire. My lord for manners, and no more heart than a wormed nut—that's ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... distrust for you from the first moment that I saw you. I know not how, or why, or in what manner, you are a villain, but I feel you to be one! I am convinced of it as thoroughly as if I knew it. You have wormed yourself into the bosom of my family. You have expelled me from the affections of my parents; and not content with this, you have stolen to the heart of the woman to whom my life was devoted, to have me driven thence also. Can I do less than hate you? Can I desire ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... his face, and wormed his way toward the nearest chimney, not twelve feet from him, for a wet helmet had emerged from the trap opening. A moment later a lantern was flashing and ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... the trees. There across a steep canon and perhaps four hundred yards away were the goats, two of them, lying on the edge of small cliffs. We could see them very plainly, but they were too far for a sure shot. After examining them to our satisfaction we wormed ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... was back in three minutes with the entire cache of cookies, which she religiously divided and the children munched contentedly while Chicken Little speculated as to what the wonderful excursion could be. With feminine persistence she wormed a few more ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... his triumph. He had not only brought his arch-enemy to his knees, but had foiled one of his audacious ventures. How clear the whole thing was! The false Paul Mole, the newly acquired menial in the household of Marat, had wormed himself into the confidence of his employer in order to wrest from him the secret of the aristo's child. Bravo! bravo! my gallant Scarlet Pimpernel! Chauvelin now could see it all. Tragedies such as that which had placed an aristo's child in the ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... another surprise was in store. A low, dubious chirping was heard, and then the female ambled leisurely to the snag and hitched up to the orifice. She made several efforts to enter, but could not while her spouse was within. Presently he wormed himself out, whereupon she went in, and remained for some time. At length I crept to the snag and beat against it with my cane. She was loath to leave the nest, but after a little while decided that discretion was the better part of valor. When she came out, my presence so near her nursery ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... Mr Flintwinch, therefore, wormed himself up the staircase, and Mr Blandois followed close. They ascended to the great garret bed-room which Arthur had occupied on the night of his return. 'There, Mr Blandois!' said Jeremiah, showing it, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... the hill, herself in deep study, and she summoned the Angel to the bar of her judgment. The Angel writhed and wormed, but it was no use, and at last with smile, violet eyes, and halo the Angel spoke the truth. Then a great light dawned for St. Hilda, and she played its searching rays on the Angel's past and he spoke more truth, ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... was in an adventure, I thought that I would see it out to the end; for I was enjoying my morning. In spite of the want of breakfast I felt very like a red Indian or a pirate, creeping through the jungle to the sack of a treasure train. So I wormed on towards the noise. As I came near to it, I went more cautiously, because in one of the pauses of the noise, I heard a muttered curse, which told me that the unseen noise-maker was a man. If I had been wise I should have stopped there; for ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... wise person, after she had wormed out the whole story, and expressed her profound sympathy, and then fallen into an attitude of deep reflection—"well, I wish I could cast my bread upon the waters in that way. What are you going to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... thought, considering this knotty problem, an idea gently wormed itself into my mind, which I at once threw out again as being absurd and out of the question. This idea was—to hold the river bed and banks on each side of the drift! To give up all idea of command, and, instead of seeking the ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton

... water, or overturned, in a moment. Small chance for a swimmer in such maelstroems! All this we saw, but had no time to shudder at. Aided by the urgent stream, we carefully and delicately—for a coarse movement would have been death—wormed our boat off the rock and went fleeting through a labyrinth of new perils, onward with a wild exhilaration, like galloping through prairie on fire. Of all the high distinctive national pleasures of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... Captain. "I knew she would be anxious to receive her brother Charles on his landing, and as I had wormed out from her the circumstances of this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... took up the money; but for all his training, he was Irish enough by birth to reckon silver the least part of any game. What he desired was the visible effect of action; so, instead of slinking away, he lay close in the grass and wormed nearer to ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... in Ireland. Doubtless if the constituencies had been left to their own devices they would have returned members responsive to the magnificent resolves of the people. But the Parliamentarians were astute manipulators of the political machine: they had for the most part wormed themselves into the good graces of the local leaders, and arranged for their own re-election when the time came. But there was nevertheless a considerable leavening of new members—young, enthusiastic and uncontaminated ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... calmer. It might have, been worse. She might have flared up. He had expected something more than this. It was lucky, after all, that June had broken the ice for him. She must have wormed it out of Bosinney; he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... proprietor went forward, and Cherry wormed her way towards the roulette-wheel. She wished to watch Glenister, but could not get near him because of the crowd. The men would not make room for her. Every eye was glued upon the table as though salvation lurked in its rows ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... man peered within, and saw, as he thought, a convenient place of shelter. With feet foremost and arms pressed closely to his side, he wormed himself into the log. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... literally. With its carpenter's-gouge, a strong black mandible, short, devoid of notches, scooped into a sharp-edged spoon, it digs the opening of its tunnel. The piece cut out is a mouthful which, as it enters the stomach, yields its scanty juices and accumulates behind the worker in heaps of wormed wood. The refuse leaves room in front by passing through the worker. A labour at once of nutrition and of road-making, the path is devoured while constructed; it is blocked behind as it makes way ahead. That, however, is how all the borers who look ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... she no longer cared about Wollaston Lee, that she fairly scorned him. Then, suddenly, something occurred to her. She turned, and ran back as fast as she could, her short fleece of golden hair flying. She wrapped her short skirts about her, and wormed through the barbed-wire fence which skirted the field—the boy had leaped it, but she was not equal to that—and she hastened, leaving a furrow through the white-and-gold herbage, to the boy lying on his face ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... a dollar for two chances right quick, and Julia went out to the bunk-house and wormed two dollars out of the boys there. And next day she was out selling off the other chances. She didn't dislike the work. It give her a chance to enter our homes and see if they needed reforming, and if the children ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... holding my breath. At the end of those few moments I could make out the form of a man swarming over the top of the door of Mrs. Pinkerton's room. His head and shoulders were already inside the room, and I could see his legs wriggle about as he noiselessly wormed his way through the narrow transom. It took me but a brief second of time to glide forward on tiptoe and mount the same chair which had been used by the intruder in climbing to the transom. This done, I seized both the wriggling ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous

... body, ever so little, Tad by a supreme muscular effort, threw his opponent slightly to one side, and quickly wormed himself from under. He was on ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... would avail. From Jamaica he sailed to Hispaniola. There his fluent persuasiveness came again into play. He met a very old man, Spaniard or Portuguese, who was said to know where the ship lay, and "by the policy of his address" wormed from him some further information about the treasure-ship. The old man told him that it had been wrecked on a reef of shoals a few leagues from Hispaniola, and just north of Port de la Plata, which place got its name from the landing there of a boat-load of sailors with ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... commanding the French frigate L'Armide, about three o'clock, seeing the unequal, but unflinching combat we were maintaining, wormed his ship coolly and deliberately through the Turkish inner line, in such a gallant, masterly style, as never for one moment to obstruct the fire of our ship upon our opponents. He then anchored on our starboard-quarter, and fired a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various

... Defoe, and the fact that he was less corruptible than was supposed. There can be little doubt that our astute intriguer would have outwitted the French emissary if he had not been warned in time, pocketed his bribes, and wormed his secrets out of him for the ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... wormed their way over the dry sticks which choked the entrance to the cave. Then Smith ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky pinched him a tergo. Down that tunnel they crawled. It was evidently a highway for the inhabitants of the combe; ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... it all very carefully, pried underneath with his jack knife, discovered the spot where the wire connected, speculated as to where it tapped the main line, prospected a bit about the place and then on hands and knees wormed himself through the thick growth of the mountain till he came out to the huckleberry clump, and recovering his bicycle walked innocently up to the station as if it were the first time that day and enquired of the surly freight man whether a box had ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... David Baker came to Lindsay. He arrived in the afternoon when Eric was in school. When the latter came home he found that David had, in the space of an hour, captured Mrs. Williamson's heart, wormed himself into the good graces of Timothy, and become hail-fellow-well-met with old Robert. But he looked curiously at Eric when the two young men found themselves ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... on the trail he wormed his way forward until he came at last within ten feet of the windmill. There was a window before him. Slowly and cautiously he drew himself up to one side of the casement and then peered ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll

... 'Menlove has wormed everything out of poor Joey, we find, and your father is much upset about it. She had another quarrel with him, and then declared she would expose you and us to Mrs. Doncastle and all your friends. I think that Menlove is the kind of woman who ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... fashion we wormed our way along a tunnel that had been roughly dug out of the shifting sand, and was shored up clumsily by means of wooden pillars and posts. Any moment, it seemed to me, we might be buried alive. We could not see an inch before our eyes, but had to grope our way ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... looks out of the window and tries to understand the world. Keep clear of the man who looks in at the window and tries to understand you. When poor old Adam had gone out gardening (Arthur will go out gardening), the other sort came along and wormed himself ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... he's spoilt by two bad traits. In the first place, he's so dreadfully conscious of the fact that he has risen from a lower position; and then, again, he's so engrossingly and pervadingly mathematical. X square seems to have seized upon him bodily, and to have wormed its fatal ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... aperture. My progress along the lower superficies of this projection was like that of a crawling reptile. My back hung suspended over the chasm, into which one false movement of hand or foot, one yielding of the roots entwined in the rock, must inevitably have precipitated me; and, while my toes wormed themselves into the tortuous fibres of the latter, I passed hand over hand beyond my head, until I had arrived within a foot or two of the point I desired to reach. Here, however, a new difficulty occurred. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... deeper measure of infamy than Captain Warnesford Armstrong, the entrapper and betrayer of the Sheareses. Having obtained an introduction to John, he represented himself as a zealous and hard-working member of the organization, and soon wormed himself completely into the confidence of his victims. He paid daily visits to the house of the Sheareses in Baggot-street, chatted with their families, and fondled the children of Henry Sheares upon his knee. We have ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... something in that,' Mr Bloomfield admitted. 'You see I thought it better that even you should be ignorant of my address; those rascals, the Finsburys, would have wormed it out of you. And just to put them off the scent I hoisted these abominable colours. But that is not all, Gid; you promised me to work, and here I find you ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... got hold of Pancha and wormed it all out of her. For years he's been longing to settle down on a ranch—that was his dream. Poor little dream! Well, it's coming true. We've got several ranches, but there's only one that counts—in Mexico. There's a small one down in Kern ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... Daireh—had got the will, or wills, having abstracted them after my uncle's death, because he had hinted at being able to tell him how to find them, and had appointed the Sunday to meet him, but had failed to keep tryst, and had disappeared. All this had to be wormed out of Philipson, who spoke very reluctantly at first. And I suspect he is as big a rascal as the other, and was in a plot with him to destroy will Number 2, and prove will Number 1, only the other would ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... rich man's son who infested the club; and, being a snob with a liking for noble nearnesses, Croesus Jr. had wormed himself into Storri's regards as far as Storri would permit. Croesus Jr., fond of display, bought a little steam yacht—one hundred tons. After two costly months of yachting, Croesus Jr., waxing thrifty and bewailing expense, laid up the yacht in a shipyard on ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... large enough. He twisted about and thrust out a leg, and then, with a feeling of ecstasy which made the official literary raptures of saints and conquerors but pale, dim moods, he wormed his way out of that jagged hole and turned, erect and free, to the shrouded ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... hit upon a plan. He would attract her attention, and reassure her by a smiling greeting from a greater distance. Silently he wormed his way back into the tree. It was his intention to hail her from beyond the palisade, giving her the feeling of security which he imagined the stout ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... out of his bonds, and make a dash for liberty. But no. Eagle had a superstitious fear of white men. He must do nothing to arouse the suspicions of his enemy. Almost as slowly as he had approached the fire, he now wormed his way from it till he was out of reach of its heat, and then lay still, his body racked with the pain of being burnt and bound. Gradually he reached down with his burned hands and loosened the rope which fettered his legs. It took some time, for he had almost lost the ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman

... brought cargoes of furniture and decorations from Paris. Forty-eight hours before the arrival of Mrs. Scott, Mademoiselle Marbeau, the postmistress, and Madame Lormier, the mayoress, had wormed themselves into the castle, and the account they gave of the interior turned every one's head. The old furniture had disappeared, banished to the attics; one moved among a perfect accumulation of wonders. And the stables! and the coach-houses! A special train had brought ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy

... gentleman answered, would probably have been the first to pour contempt on the verdure of his companion. He had come up to Fellsgarth determined that, in whatever respect he failed, no one should lightly convict him of being green. He had wormed out of his brother in the Sixth a few hints of what was considered the proper thing at Fellsgarth, and these, with the aid of his own brilliant intellect and reminiscences of what he had read in the books, served, ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... it hard to control her jumping nerves. A curious thing had happened to her. Having at last wormed her way into the master's confidence, and brought a long piece of play-acting to a successful conclusion, a certain candor and frankness which were natural to her made the thought of divulging what she had already found ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris

... was installed at Hanover Lodge and, before half a day was over, had wormed her way into the confidence of the housekeeper, had won a right to use the kitchen, had consulted the cook on several recondite subjects and furnished her with a new receipt for elderberry wine, and had taken over the whole matter of the preserving for the year. She had arrived a little late, ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... minutes Bert remained perfectly motionless. There had been no barking of dogs, and, after listening intently, he became convinced that no living thing was out of doors in the vicinity of the shack. With infinite caution he wormed his way along the ground and, reaching a window in the rear of the house, drew himself to the sill and ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... drop down into an eroded deep little ravine. Here the air was like that of a furnace, but at least we could walk upright for a few rods. This we did, with the most extraordinary precautions against even the breaking of a twig or the rolling of a pebble. Then we clambered to the top of the bank, wormed our way forward another fifty feet to the shelter of a tiny bush, and stretched out to recuperate. We lay there some time, sheltered from the sun. Then ahead of us suddenly rumbled a deep bellow. We were ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... wife had wormed the secret from her husband, and she found it hard to keep. She told it to Maximilian Cour, and he kept it. She told it to her cousin, the wife of Filion Lacasse, and she did not keep it. Before twenty-four hours went round, a dozen people ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... course you don't! An' please, PLEASE don't look like that," begged Susan. "It's jest this. I found out. I wormed it out of him the other day—why he won't let you come to see him. He says that once, long ago, you said how you couldn't bear to look at ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter

... tragedy was that performed by the Canon Nicolas Loiseleur, a creature of Cauchon, as false, as cruel, and as unscrupulous as his master and patron. This reverend scoundrel had, at the beginning of the trial, by his feigned sympathy for the prisoner, wormed himself into Joan of Arc's confidence. He told her that he, too, came from near her home, that he in his heart of hearts belonged to the French side, that he was a prisoner on account of his known devotion to Charles and to France, and many other ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... two and he would have gone into the firelight. But the white man rose to his feet, stretched himself as he had often seen Challoner stretch, and picked up a stick of wood as big as his arm. He came within ten feet of Miki, and Miki wormed himself just a little toward him, and stood up on his feet. It brought him into a half light. His eyes were aglow with the reflection of the fire. And the ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... Wedderburn had wormed himself into favour with Lord North and won the office of Solicitor-General (1778). Two years later he became Lord Loughborough, a title which Fox ascribed to his rancorous abuse of the American colonists. Figuring next ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... cloudy and black, and not too still; everything, in fact, was in the boy's favour as, with beating heart, he wormed his way out of the wigwam and crawled stealthily on his belly from the camp towards the dense gloom of the forest. Then, almost as he had succeeded in gaining the comparative safety of the trees, beneath his moccasined foot a stick snapped, and a cursed Indian ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... you, before my daughter's fair hand had affixed her own honourable name beneath that of a cheat and a traitor. . . . Yes! M. de Marmont," he reiterated with virile force, breaking in on the hot protests which had risen to the young man's lips, "no one but a cheat and a traitor could thus have wormed himself into the confidence of an old man and of a young girl! No one but a villainous blackguard could have contemplated the abominable deceptions which you have planned against ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... called to us." He laughed. "What does it mean in reality: Germania, Italia, La France, Britannia? Half a score of pompous old muddlers with their fat wives egging them on: sons of the fools before them; talkers who have wormed themselves into power by making frothy speeches and fine promises. My Country!" he laughed again. "Look at them. Can't you see their swelling paunches and their flabby faces? Half a score of ambitious politicians, gouty old financiers, bald-headed old toffs, ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... him. I wormed the whole thing out of our sentry this afternoon. Fenley tried hard to send Farrow and Bates off on a wild-goose chase, but Farrow, quite mistakenly, saw the chance of his life and clung on to it. Had Farrow budged we could never have ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... somehow, or make it," said Nora, firmly. "That dear boy must be saved. When he was stopping here I wormed all his secrets out of his little ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... well as the eighth, were incorporated in the Formula of Concord in order thoroughly to purify the Lutheran Church from Reformed errors concerning the Lord's Supper and the person of Christ, which after Luther's death had wormed their way into some of her schools and churches, especially those of Electoral Saxony, and to make her forever immune against the infection of Calvinism (Crypto-Calvinism)—a term which, during the controversies preceding the Formula ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... of saving the submarine, of rescuing the men below, flashed wildly through his head. But only for a moment. On second thought, he felt he ought to hide. So, in the tomblike silence that had fallen, the two-hundred-and-twenty-pound McKegnie wormed a way behind an instrument panel, effecting the journey by vigorous shoves of his stomach. It was minutes later that he first noticed that some sharp jutting object was jutting deep into his ample paunch, but he could ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... wormed its way through the crowd and were waiting at the foot of the gangplank for ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... go," said I. My heart was beating horribly. I would not trust myself to speak again. But I wormed my way to a front place in the little procession, and was, in fact, the second man to cross the threshold that had been the Rubicon of my life. As I did so I uttered a cry of pain, for Mackenzie had trod back heavily ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... all-fours, and in this attitude wormed his way across to the opposite roof, whose occupants, engrossed in the fight in the street, in which the police had now joined, had their backs turned and did not observe him. Mr. Gooch, pallid and obviously ill-attuned to such feats, followed him; and finally Billy Windsor ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... of evidence and court procedure here admitted of no interruption of the prosecution in presenting a case, then went on to describe from his own point of view how Cowperwood had first met Stener; how he had wormed himself into his confidence; how little financial knowledge Stener had, and so forth; coming down finally to the day the check for sixty thousand dollars was given Cowperwood; how Stener, as treasurer, claimed that he knew nothing of its delivery, which constituted ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... at it!" Alix exclaimed with relish. She loved a struggle of any description, had prepared for this one with sleeves rolled to the elbows, and had put on heavy shoes and her briefest skirt. "Come on, Sweetums," she added, to the dog, who had somehow wormed his way into the dining room, and was beating the floor with an obsequious tail. She caught his forepaws, and he whipped his beautiful tail between his legs, and looked about with agonized eyes while she dragged him through a clumsy dance. "He's ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris

... reference to the muzzle-loaders. The charge for these was contained in cartridges, covered with canvas, or "paper royall" (i.e. parchment), though the parchment used to foul the gun at each discharge. Burning scraps of it remained in the bore, so that, before reloading, the weapon had to be "wormed," or scraped out, with an instrument like an edged corkscrew. A tampion, or wad, of oakum or the like, was rammed down between the cartridge and the ball, and a second wad kept the ball in place. When the gun was loaded the gunner filled ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... vellum; for the Cardinal, who was a great patron of Sweynheym and Pannartz, the printers, would doubtless have possessed it in that condition. At the beginning, however, it is slightly stained, and at the end slightly wormed. Yet is this copy, in its primitive binding, finer than any which can well be imagined. The curious are aware that this is supposed to have been the first book printed at Rome; and that the blanks, left for the introduction of Greek characters, prove that ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... her too that Brandon Booth had wormed the truth out of Sara, and that she would never see him again. It hurt her to think that while Sara believed in her, the man who loved her did not. It ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon



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