Poke out

1886, Wilkie Collins, The Evil Genius, London: Chatto & Windus, Volume 1, Before the Story, Part 4, p. 41, Here’s the Queen, my dears, in her gilt coach, drawn by six horses. Do you see her sceptre poking out of the carriage window? She governs the nation with that.

“Fred’s great, perfectly great,” she said, looking down at the toe of her slipper, poking out from her pink tulle skirt.

A big round grey rock, like the upper half of an egg, poked out of the water about a mile from the stony headland.

As they gazed, a white face, wet with the sweat of fear, poked out and stared down upon them with eyes in which the late terror still lived.

One by one five mouths poked out of the shells, demanding to be fed […]

As dawn came I watched things slowly poke out of the black. Each thing was a surprise.

Ye see then we are but as snayles, and are chaunged incontinent. And is it meet that we shoulde poke out our hornes agaynst God?

In came the fellow, bowing and scraping, his hat poked out before him with both his hands.

The Badger and I have been round and round the place, by night and by day; always the same thing. Sentries posted everywhere, guns poked out at us, stones thrown at us; always an animal on the look-out […]

I felt so light and free and happy—so childish! I wanted to poke my tongue out at the circle on the grass, who, drawing close together, were whispering meaningly.