Word: jerk
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
After a while I thought about pulling the rip cord. "What about giving the old 'brolly' a tryout?" I thought. . . . The canopy streamed out, there was a hard jerk, and there I was right side up, quite comfortable and floating slowly, oh! so slowly, earthwards. I was about 9-10,000 ft. so I had fallen free for about 8 or 9,000 ft. (from 18,000 ft.) and might have fallen further with advantage. ... A Spitfire dived down past me with a high pitched whine, but that was the only disturbance...
...boys' band until his father moved to the country to run a general store. Aged 12, Mike worked in a Chicago carnival pitch where anyone who could throw three balls into a bucket got a free duck. Mike's job was to sit hidden under a platform, jerk a string that made the balls bounce out if they happened to drop into the bucket. He got 25? a night. When he asked for 50? and was refused, he went lightly on the string, cost the boss many a duck. He passed on to soda jerking, pharmacy, shoe selling...
Franklin Roosevelt slept through the fall of France with a clear conscience, awaking in time for the 8 a.m. radio newscast. For this moment he was prepared, as ever. Now was the time, at last, to jerk from his hat something bigger than a rabbit. Months ago, the President had pondered the grave new world, had brooded on the dread possibility of a United States of Germany which would have terrific economic striking power.* As usual, the President asked aides to submit suggestions. An adviser with a real passion for anonymity, working under Harry Hopkins and Adolf Berle, conceived...
...their crisis the Dutch showed that they still knew how to maintain law & order. One E. J. B. M. Boenninghausen, Nazi member of the 'First Chamber of Parliament, took exception to two detectives who watched the Chamber's proceedings through a half-open door, tried to jerk the door wide open. One of the detectives rapped his knuckles with a revolver butt. The other slammed the door in his face. Purple-faced Nazi Boenninghausen demanded that the detectives be removed. Replied the Chamber's President Baron de Vos van Steenwyk: "You will be the one removed...
...Hull dickered desperately with Argentina for his 23rd trade agreement, the 23rd tide of complaints rolled in. Cattlemen, dairymen, manufacturers squawked louder than ever before. Not only had Republicans whipped up anti-agreement sentiment throughout the Midwest, but New Dealers from agricultural States had pledged themselves to jerk away Mr. Hull's powers at the earliest opportunity...