Improve your vocabulary by Quiz

Use haggle in a sentence

Definition of haggle:

  • (noun) an instance of intense argument (as in bargaining)
  • (verb) wrangle (over a price, terms of an agreement, etc.);

Sentence Examples:

Those American circles which are suffering financial losses as a result of the English blockade, have no weight in face of the tremendous stream of gold which our enemies have poured lavishly over this country, not haggling over details, and conniving at 'graft.'

Curtailing everything, depriving others and themselves, haggling bitterly over bills, denying their words, recognizing no agreements save those that are written and signed, one must keep an eye on them, and in business affairs never open the door for any dispute whatever.

Upon this scale, commercial sharpness has an air of patriotism; and I can imagine the man, so far from haggling over the scourge for a few Solomon islanders, prepared to oppress rival firms, overthrow inconvenient monarchs, and let loose the dogs of war.

We lie and haggle and cheat only the better to apprehend the subtleties of spiritual discourse in fashionable churches, and our generous appreciation of the consummate chivalry of the hero of melodrama is the reward we owe ourselves for the pain it gave us to kick our wives.

This course was proper for the representative of a country that had always loved frank diplomacy, and felt no need of jockeying in the present negotiations; and it was also prudent, for in tedious haggling and crafty special pleading no Anglo-Saxon could rival the Mexicans.

Not a single purchase could be made on either side without a tremendous haggling, shouting, and gesticulating, as if the parties were on the verge of coming to blows; whereas all was in good fellowship, and a pleasing excitement and diversion where time was of no value to anybody.

Above the thin orchestra of musical toys, the tramp of feet like an army marching, voices raucous from straining to be heard, a clock over the grand central stairway boomed nine, and the crowd pulled at its strength for a last hour of bartering, tearing, pushing, haggling, sweating.

Some haggled and talked incessantly over the mere possession of a stone which they called a rock; others busied themselves in digging a little yellow metal out of the earth, which, when once obtained, seemed to make the owners of it mad, for they straightway forgot everything else.

There was a power in his presence, his smile, the grasp of his hand, that deep and magnificent eye, which triumphed, unconsciously to himself, over all our haggling differences of temperament and opinion, and drew, by the same unconsciousness of itself, our best manhood to his side.

There was a tremendous amount of haggling done before the hotel-keeper would accept a compromise; but at last, a number of bolts of new canvas and several coils of rope were transferred to the launch, and with these, I have no doubt, the creditor was very well paid indeed.

It's hard to know you can "Bear swift errands over moist and dry, O'er sea and land," as his laureate Milton puts it, and yet be doomed to keep still hour after hour in a stuffy office, or to haggle over details of pork and cheese in a malodorous victualing yard.

Competition, in which alone civil or political life unrolls itself, is a game of luck through and through, from the speculations of the exchange down to the solicitation of offices, the hunt for customers, looking for work, aspiring to promotion and decorations, the second-hand dealer's petty haggling, etc.

And she looked down at last from her heights with a mixture of pity and scorn on the miserable race below, who, wrapped in earth-born clouds, spent their lives in longing and grasping, in haggling and hoarding, and a secret aversion took the place of her first home-sickness.

I have seen such women, too proud to complain or remonstrate, turn away with a crimson cheek, and a moist eye, to dicker, and haggle, and contrive for this end, when the husband who gave this advice, had effectually blotted out the word self-denial from his own dictionary.

After a protracted haggling, we found it impossible to come to terms, and we gave up this first attempt; and we gave it up, be it added, with a certain degree of satisfaction, for our self-respect was somewhat wounded at finding ourselves reduced even to the proposition of wearing such filthy rags.

If I had a thousand horse that could but trot thirty miles, I should not doubt but to give a very good account of them; but truly we are so harassed and haggled out in this business, that we are not able to do more than walk at an easy pace after them.

This lesson later stood us in good stead, for some weeks later it devolved upon us to purchase harnesses and sleds for these very horses and the reader may be sure that such haggling and bargaining (all through an interpreter) was never seen before in this part of the country.

Up and down it Merton Gill strolled in a negligent manner, stopping perhaps to haggle with the vendor who sold sweetmeats from a tray, or to chat with a tribal brother fresh from the sandy wastes, or to purchase a glass of milk from the man with the goats.

While men will haggle to the penny over the price of hay, or fight for a cent more to the bushel of oats, they will turn out their very pockets for strange, intangible joys, hopes, thoughts, or for a moment of peace in a feverish world the unknown great possessions.

After a long trudge from home, commenced before dawn, and a weary haggling over the most worthless of "coppers" during the heat of the day, the poor folk are quite ready for a quiet resting-time, with something to distract their minds and fill them with thoughts for the homeward way.

Safety wished to haggle some about the mules, but Sandy says he's already stated the price in clear, ringing tones, and he has no time to waste, being that I must send him down that night to get an order on the wire for two carloads of the Little Giant peanut.

Beeton would take Dick out with him when he went marketing in the morning to haggle with tradesmen over fish, lamp-wicks, mustard, tapioca, and so forth, while Dick rested his weight first on one foot and then on the other and played aimlessly with the tins and string-ball on the counter.

Then do those at whose disposal such nourishment is placed fondly occupy whole periods of their lives with it, and rejoice in a superabundant growth; while men are not wanting, meanwhile, who resist such an effect on the spot, nor others who afterwards haggle and cavil at its high meaning.

You know how I hate early rising; and here have I been for three days, up two hours before the sun, and, blinking by a dull taper, haggling at my inflamed beard before a little pimping inn looking-glass, and abstaining from suicide only from a deep sense of religion and love to my country.

He haggled a long time with me, in hopes that I would make some abatement: but finding at last that I was positive, and for fear that I should shew it to other jewelers, as I certainly should have done, he would not leave me till the bargain was concluded on my own terms.

Having had so much difficulty in inducing the Don to sell at all, they were not disposed to endanger the sale by haggling about the price; and when the latter was fixed at one million five hundred thousand dollars, they made no demur, although the sum rather staggered their enthusiasm at first.

When the omelette arrived, all decked with parsley and nasturtium, and borne by the host and four cooks, the blind men would fain have thrown themselves upon it and already were haggling in it, but the host served them separately, not without difficulty, to each his share in his own dish.

Later, and much nearer the end of the street where the cameras were, he saw the sheik of noble mien halt the flower seller, haggle for another rose, place this daintily behind his left ear and stalk on, his musket held over one shoulder, his other hand on a belted pistol.

When etiquette had been satisfied and all the preliminary haggling was over, the parties agreed upon a scribe, who was made acquainted with the terms of the sale, already verbally agreed upon, and he set down in the imperishable clay the legal instrument which should bind the parties to their contract forever.

It is not customary, however, to haggle about the sum, and the correspondence should not be carried farther than above, except it be an intimation from the artist that he will accept the terms of the purchaser, and that the picture is subject to his order, and will be sent to him on further instructions.

My wife and I, together with two friends, engaged, after much eloquent haggling, a boat at the former place, but one of the men who were to row us insinuated a boy of his, aged four, into the boat, an addition which did not exactly add to the pleasures of that somewhat perilous trip amidst incomprehensible currents.

In other words, that we should all be gentlemen and take care of our country because our country takes care of us, instead of the commercialized cads we are, doing everything and anything for money, and selling our souls and bodies by the pound and the inch after wasting half the day haggling over the price.

I had for some time found it difficult to keep up the respectful manner necessary to be observed to Sovereigns, but here, at the thought of our respective parents obstinately haggling over the same bit of jewelry, with a jeweler who was in great terror of offending either, we both threw etiquette to the winds and laughed outright.

Horses and mules in numbers are shown off among the crowd to increase the turmoil; nor is even the wandering Hebrew wanting to complete the scene of traffic, haggling, and barter, which continues, without intermission, until a late hour in the afternoon, when the village relapses again into its wonted six days of quiet and repose.

Such a pair of scissors he wouldn't sell at any price, for he could never get such a pair again; and while they stood and haggled for the scissors, the Princess had time to look better at Boots, and she too thought with the innkeepers' wives that she had never seen such a handsome fellow before.

It is possible that this may arise in part from the custom of haggle; that is, of not having fixed prices for articles sold, and the customer, especially women, enter and argue to a wearisome length often, in obtaining a reduction, or finger the goods to such an extent as to exasperate the whole race of counter attendants.

It is not by "bidding down" the age of the extinct or quiescent volcanoes by a species of blind haggling, or by presuming mistake in the calculations regarding them, simply because mistakes are possible and have sometimes been made, that that portion of the cumulative evidence against a universal deluge which they furnish is to be neutralized or set aside.

Those of them who fail in their examination through incapacity or illness usually bear their cross patiently and do not haggle with me; those who come to the house and haggle with me are always youths of sanguine temperament, broad natures, whose failure at examinations spoils their appetites and hinders them from visiting the opera with their usual regularity.

In advising the chiefs to ask the enormous sum named above, and to abide by their demand, he was perfectly well aware that the United States Government would not agree to it, but the larger the demand the more protracted would be the haggle, and the more protracted the haggle the more time would be his wherein to enrich himself.

A much more illustrious speaker, who spoke under circumstances not very unlike those in which the poor conspirator above noted made his haggling and fatal attempts at oratory, is known to have been guilty of a similar oversight; for, having invented a plan of universal science, designed for the relief of the human estate, he forgot the principal application of it.

Consequently, men of business do not haggle and discuss the fractional profits with which manufacturers and merchants have now-a-days to be content in the older countries of the world, and especially when there is a large amount of borrowed capital floating throughout a country, there is sure to exist something of that spendthrift feeling which we always associate with the individual borrower.

Both parties were naturally jealous of one another, suspicious of underhand dealing and tacit changes of terms, prompt to resent and take offense, and not easy to pacify when they thought advantage had been taken; and Salisbury, either by his own fault, or by yielding to the King's canny shiftiness, gave the business a more haggling and huckstering look than it need have had.

It was no grief to her to toil, taking long weary walks and giving tedious lessons for the small stipends which her employers had the conscience to offer her; they felt no compunction about bargaining and haggling as to a few pitiful shillings with a music mistress who looked so very poor, and seemed so glad to work for their paltry pay.

I spent the morning with mother at the dressmakers, and she chose two perfectly spiffing things, one of white chiffon over silk, made modified Empire, with little bunches of roses here and there on it, and when she and the dressmaker were haggling over the roses, I took the scissors and cut the neck of the lining two inches lower in front.

The unfortunate pig was haggled over with and without the hams, with and without the bacon fat, with one ham only, with its head, without its head, with only half its head, and every cunning offer of the little pork-butcher was resisted with a fineness of perception of self-interest that would have done credit to the peace plenipotentiaries at Portsmouth.

You have bad moments indeed as you stand in their halls of humbug and, in the intervals of haggling, hear through the high windows the soft splash of the sea on the old water-steps, for you think with anger of the noble homes that are laid waste in such scenes, of the delicate lives that must have been, that might still be, led there.

The old man's eyes would water at sight of that stern, long-faced puritan, who never had much to say in the house, but went into high dudgeon over the slightest waste on the part of the domestics, scolding the farmhands for the merest oversight in the orchards, haggling and wrangling with the orange drummers for a centime more or less per hundredweight.

Tedious hours passed in this way; as a final petition, the sultan said I must give him for himself a gun and my silk turban, as I had given up wearing anything on my head, and did not require it: these were, after a certain amount of haggling, surrendered, on condition that the sultan would exert himself a little more energetically on my account.

If the Japanese were cautious in their dealings, haggled over details, were slow to make concessions which it was likely they intended all the time to make, gave up nothing until they were sure they would be backed by the home government, it might be exasperating, but it was not necessarily a proof of intrigue or of a lack of sympathy with the larger purposes of the Conference.

They buy them, and sell them, and handle them, and haggle over, them, and display them, in the plate glass windows of "Stores" and "Emporiums" and make profit out of them, and use them, but these people themselves produce nothing that is necessary to life or happiness, and the things that some of them do produce are only necessary to the present imbecile system.'

And if the other man in these little matters evinced the slightest want of trade-reciprocity, he generally regretted it, for he would lose the household chattel, and getting nothing for her, save perhaps lumps and excoriations, or perhaps a sarcastic note informing him that the writer could not afford to waste time haggling over so trifling a matter as the price of a native Venus.

His idea had been to get Elizabeth out of the way when it came to selling the absurd furniture about which their affections were twined and tangled; but when it came to the sale it was Elizabeth who haggled with the dealer while Denton went about the running ways of the city, white and sick with sorrow and the fear of what was still to come.

Sponge, who, after a good deal of haggling, and not until the horse had shot the major over his head, too, at length, as a great favor, consented to take fifty pounds to rescind the bargain, accompanying his kindness by telling the major to advise his ward never to dabble in horseflesh after dinner; a piece of advice that we also very respectfully tender to our juvenile readers.

We went on the 10th to the shore, when a canoe came off with a considerable quantity of gold; and after long haggling we at length reduced their measure to a nail less than three ells, and brought up their weight to an angel and twenty grains, after which, in about a quarter of an hour, I sold cloth for a pound and a quarter of an ounce of gold.

They were not aware or had forgotten that in dealing with Eastern affairs or in pursuing negotiations with people of ancient civilization, a great deal of delicacy, discretion, and shrewdness is required at the same time, and that generally diplomatists must expect plenty of haggling and procrastination, must avoid clashing with the adversary, and be able repeatedly to drop and resume a discussion smoothly, sometimes after long delays.

I have even gone so far as to seek the offices of land-agents, and haggle over the price of land which I never meant to buy, for the mere pleasure of fancying it was mine; and this kind of game was long pursued, for land-agents are a numerous tribe, and when one discovered my imposture, there was always another ready to accept me as a capitalist in search of the picturesque.

Many of the women in the store, clerks and shoppers, wore peevish, discontented expressions, and spoke in high ugly voices; the noise of their haggling filled the whole room and added to the din made by the little metal money-boxes that whizzed by on overhead wires, and increased the sense of confusion produced by the cheap and useless things which, with their untruthful placards, were piled about everywhere.

And the young man saw her make her way, followed by the two country women, through the crowds, pausing at the booths, welcomed by the vendors with their best smiles, as a customer who never haggled; interrupting her purchases to fondle the filthy, whining children the poor women were carrying in their arms, and taking the best fruits out of her basket to give to the little ones.

The "Pioneer" and its successors established such a standard, and immediately those accustomed and able to afford the increased rate required by the greater investment in the car, gladly and thankfully accepted it; while those whose nature usually inclines to haggling when the purse is touched, were convinced of the worth of the innovation by the assurance against disaster which the weight and strength of the Pullman cars assured.

I think they are nothing but shadows of some imperfect images and conceptions that they know not what to make of within, nor consequently bring out; they do not yet themselves understand what they would be at, and if you but observe how they haggle and stammer upon the point of parturition, you will soon conclude, that their labor is not to delivery, but about conception, and that they are but licking their formless embryo.

At length, after much searching and haggling, an insufficient caravan was provided, the household goods bestowed, and, the women folk sitting on them as did Rachel in the Old Testament story, we set forth through the oak openings, over the unvarying level, to the music of two or three rifles in the hands of the adventurers attached to our party, who found good and unaccustomed sport in the small game frequent among the glades of the vast continuous forest.