Citations:gnashy

English citations of gnashy

Adjective: "gnashing the teeth"

						1965 1984 1991 1992 1993 1996	2011
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• 1965 — Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels, Perigee Books (1965), page 5:

  Even Hozomeen'll crack and fall apart, nothing lasts, it is only a faring-in-that-which-everything-is, a passing-through, that's what's going on, why ask questions or tear hair or weep, the burble blear Purple Lear on his moor of woes he is only a gnashy old flap with winged whiskers beminded by a fool — to be and not to be, that's what we are […]

• 1984 — Vicki P. McConnell, The Burnton Widows, Naiad Press (1984), →ISBN, page 146:

  "She told you I'm part bulldog—right?"

  He smiled and touched Nyla's arm. "It's a very classy bulldog, all silver gleaming fur with teeth sharp and gnashy.

• 1991 — Tabor Evans, Longarm and the Arkansas Ambush, Jove Books (1991), →ISBN, page 91:

  But Longarm didn't shoot to kill the few times they were bluff-charged by old, gnashy sows with chipmunk-striped young rooting after 'em.

• 1992 — Nicholson Baker, Vox, Random House (1992), →ISBN, page 83:

  I'm afraid that by now I was curling my upper lip with pleasure. My expression in fact was exactly the one I would have had if I had been biting open a condom packet with my teeth, that gnashy look, but the thing was — there was no condom packet.

• 1993 — Karen Fredericks, "What's So Good About Dinosaurs?", Green Left Weekly, 29 September 1993:

  Well, in Jurassic Park you don't get to see the big ones much. Most of the chase scenes involve little ones with gnashy gnashy teeth, sort of like a cross between an alien and a shark with feet.

• 1996 — Allen Ginsberg, Indian Journals, Grove Press (1996), →ISBN, page 29:

  O but the Gnaw of dread at becoming that fearful Allen in the face of that monster, that made Arjuna fall on his face & pray for his charioteer to take his old familiar human shape — and stop showing all those implacable inhuman gnashy fangs.

• 2011 — Matthew Claxton, "Age of Wonders Inspires Present", Chilliwack Times, 18 January 2011:

  The continents were in different places, the seas were warmer and full of giant swimming reptiles with big gnashy teeth.

Adjective: "(of a sound) grating and harsh"

						1992 1993 1998	2006
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• 1992 — Car and Driver, Volume 38, page 72:

  Deft and comfy, if gnashy of engine, the Prizm looks like an inspired sketch that somehow made it into metal and ought to be viewed as a traveling sculpture exhibit.

• 1993 — Paul Dean, "Another Thoroughbred", Los Angeles Times, 1 October 1993:

  The downside is a gnashy five-speed manual that requires too much thought and, on occasions, some visual monitoring. It is too vague between gears, too long in the shifter, too long in the throw . . . and clearly too long in the tooth.

• 1998 — Jim Kenzie, "1999 Oldsmobile Alero", Wheels.ca, 28 November 1998:

  Too bad the engine sounds so unrefined, with a gnashy sound on startup and harsh intake noise on acceleration. It quiets down in highway cruising, though.

• 2006 — Thomas Peele, "'The Boss' makes folk songs rock", Chattanooga Times Free Press, 14 June 2006:

  "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" creates an elemental sound that allows Springsteen to easily bind himself to folk music's rootsy essence.

  For a man whose voice is often as gnashy as a cheese grater scraping a rock, it's an easy fit.