spike-tailed

Or a pair of dog-sized, huge-jawed, sensor-bristling hunters loped six-legged on a quest; or a bigger object, vhorned and spike-tailed, rumbled on caterpillar treads along the bottom of a ravine.

A Circus of Hells Anderson, Poul, 1926- 1969

You cannot pick up a magazine without running plump into an article on the deadly housefly - with pictures of him magnified until he looks like the old million-toed, barrel-eyed, spike-tailed dragon of your boyhood mince-pie dreams.

The Long Ago

"Ben wants to air his spike-tailed coat and low-neck vest," said Kit.

Ted Strong's Motor Car Edward C. Taylor

Old Grumpy had faced a Grizzly once, and was she now to be held up by a miserable little spike-tailed skunk no bigger than a mouthful?

Johnny Bear And Other Stories from Lives of the Hunted Ernest Thompson Seton 1903

After him came a tired ringmaster, lanky and not half so proud as he looked to be in his spike-tailed coat.

The Rose in the Ring George Barr McCutcheon 1897

Mr. Rooney is fine as a heavy-metal Beelzebub, as are his spike-tailed temptresses-in-waiting.

NYT > Home Page By ANDY WEBSTER 2011

Man goes about in a spike-tailed coat and a skyscraper hat and declares bridges and tunnels open "in the name of the Commonwealth," and he wouldn't know a Commonwealth if he fell over one.

Division of Labour 2009

a coarse brown blanket robe dragging the ground; St. Sebastian with scarcely any raiment at all -- these we should see, and should enjoy seeing them; but would we not miss a spike-tailed coat and kids, and turn away regretfully, and say to parties from the Orient: "These are well enough, but you ought to see Talmage of Brooklyn."

The Curious Republic of Gondour, and Other Whimsical Sketches Mark Twain 1872

"Hell isn't dark and smoky," thought I to myself; "hell is bright and sunny, and there is lots of sparkling water in it and on the sparkling water are innumerable boats and in these boats are huddled the poor lost mortals who are forced to listen through eternity to the wise cracks of cloven-hoofed, spike-tailed coxswains.

Biltmore Oswald The Diary of a Hapless Recruit Thorne Smith 1913

(Canker entered service in '61 as a private in a city company that was militia to the tip of its spike-tailed coats, but he had forgotten it.) "I want these young idlers to understand distinctly, by George, that the first prisoner that gets away from this post takes somebody's commission with him.

Found in the Philippines The Story of a Woman's Letters Charles King 1888