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Affright   Listen
noun
Affright  n.  
1.
Sudden and great fear; terror. It expresses a stronger impression than fear, or apprehension, perhaps less than terror. "He looks behind him with affright, and forward with despair."
2.
The act of frightening; also, a cause of terror; an object of dread.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Affright" Quotes from Famous Books



... child of a year, do you wonder what here upon earth you shall find? America shows you a people united in purpose and mind; Whatever you bring us of danger, whatever you hold to affright, I pray that we never shall lower our standards of ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest

... like a draught-horse, and balancing on my strength as it were, with the ashen stake set behind me. Then I said to my self, "John Ridd, the sooner you get yourself out by the way you came, the better it will be for you." But to my great dismay and affright, I saw that no choice was left me now, except that I must climb somehow up that hill of water, or else be washed down into the pool and whirl around it till it drowned me. For there was no chance of fetching back by the way I had gone down into it, and further up ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... storming through the streets, Vent on thy tribe accursed their well-based wrath." And, truly, through closed casements roared the noise Of mighty surging crowds, derisive cries, And victims' screams of anguish and affright. Then Raschi, royal in his rags, began: "Hear me, my liege!" At that commanding voice, The Bishop, who with dazed eyes had perused The grieved, wise, beautiful, pale face, sprang up, Quick recognition in his glance, warm joy Aflame on his broad cheeks. ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... quitting his saddle. A female of middle age, with an outward bearing but little more prepossessing than that of her dwelling, appeared to answer the summons. The startled woman half closed her door again in affright, as she saw, by the glare of a large wood fire, a mounted man so unexpectedly near its threshold; and an expression of terror mingled with her natural curiosity, as she ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... sabre and bore down on them, he and his, but the Franks met them with hearts firmer than rocks, and wight dashed against wight, and knight dashed upon knight, and hot waxed the fight, and sore was the affright, and nor parley nor cries of quarter helped their plight; and they stinted not to charge and to smite, right hand meeting right, nor to hack and hew with blades bright white, till day turned to night and gloom oppressed the sight. Then they drew apart and Sharrkan mustered his men and found none ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... that Peregrine, pretending to recollect himself a little, ran, with all the marks of disturbance and affright, and called up the servants to the assistance of their master, whom they found in a cold sweat upon the floor, his features betokening horror and confusion. Hatchway raised him up, and having comforted him with a cup of Nantz, began to inquire into the cause of his ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... from the table. "What, surely, Mistress Fawkes—nay, by my troth, Mistress Fawkes it shall be no more, for 'tis too cold a title; therefore, Pretty Elinor—wouldst leave me, and thy errand but half done? I swear thy words did at first affright; but see, this good wine," he continued, advancing toward her unsteadily, "hath taught me wisdom, and this I know, our secret once hid in thy fair breast, could ne'er be driven forth, even if thou wished, as 'tis too warm a resting place for it to relinquish. Why dost thou shrink from me? Dost ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley

... tremendous one, carrying him clear up over the head of the lad, who crouched down in affright, expecting him to drop upon his shoulders; but he passed far beyond, dropping upon the trunk of the tree, which he clutched and clawed in his blind, frantic way, without saving himself in the least, ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... you—but I care not for his love! I will conquer this disgraceful passion. I will torture my own heart; but thine will I crush to atoms! Rocks and chasms will I hurl between you. I will rush, like a fury, into the heaven of your joys. My name shall affright your loves as a spectre scares an assassin. That young and blooming form in his embrace shall wither to a skeleton. I cannot be blest with him— neither shalt thou. Know, wretched girl; that to blast the happiness of others is ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... last evening. I suppose no transactions of a body assembled to deliberate, were ever more outrageously invaded by an attempt to turn them into a mere tumult; yet, though voices were loud and angry, and the evil passions exhibited themselves with much of that quality to affright, which usually, if not always, attends their exhibition, not a scream was heard from any woman, nor did any of the "weaker sex" exhibit the slightest terror, or even alarm at the violent manifestations which invaded the peace of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... ankle, and on her feet the tiny, beaded shoes. For her part, Mary Connynge, filled with woman's curiosity, was yet less prepared for that which appeared before her—an apparition, as ran her first thought, come to threaten and affright. ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... us, we behave like a herd of deer. When they flee from the huntsman's feathers in affright, which way do they turn? What haven of safety do they make for? Why, they rush upon the nets! And thus they perish by confounding what they should fear with that wherein no danger lies. . . . Not death or pain is to be feared, but the fear of death or pain. Well ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... his admiring gaze could with difficulty be torn away from yonder younger, even more lovely, visage; although as yet the maiden had spoken no word, even shrinking away from this strangely speaking Aztec as though in affright. ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... and movements were very distinct. Suddenly from the entrance of one hive near Mr. Clifford, which she happened to be covering with her glass, she saw pouring out a perfect torrent of bees. She started back in affright, but Mr. Clifford told her to stand still, and she noted that he quietly kept his seat, while following through his gold-rimmed spectacles the swirling, swaying stream that rushed into the upper air. The combined hum smote the ear with its intensity. Each bee was ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... mechanically, had stretched a hand for them, and when they were opened, and he saw the seal, and realised what they were, some curious guttural sound issued from his lips as if he had waked in affright from a nightmare. He pulled a drawer of the desk open, took out a cheroot—and lighted it. Then he commenced to speak, slowly, droppingly, as one speaks who has suddenly been detected in a crime. He put a flat hand on the papers, ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... my Vision—it was night: We clove a pathway through a frantic throng: The steeds, wild-plunging, filled us with affright: The ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll

... Twenty-first Birthday. Alas, when he was Stricken, upon the News of Richard's Demise, he had no Chance to tell me All, nor was there among his Papers the Keye nor any Clue to It. When J. call'd us, he was Beyond Speech & shee Hystericall with Affright. Thus the Whole Secret perishes, since Without the Keye & his Instructions 'twould ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... theire being and subsistence." Rumors had been raised, the declaration went on, that by a recent ordinance of Parliament, all foreigners were prohibited from trading with any of the English plantations "which wee conceive to bee the invention of some English merchants on purpose to affright and expell the Dutch, and make way for themselves to monopolize not onely our labours and fortunes, but even our persons." The declaration noted the baneful effects on the colony of the greed of the English merchants and pointed out that by ancient ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn

... intercourse which makes men of a certain temper intensely anxious to avoid a sort of marriage which would, among other things, have the effect of committing them more deeply to this kind of intercourse. Such men shrink with affright from giving hostages to society for a more faithful compliance with its most dismal exactions. To them there is nothing more unendurable than the monotonous round of general hospitalities and ceremonials, ludicrously misnamed pleasure. A detestation of wearisome formalities ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... Prescott's quarters at about midnight, secured the sentinels, entered the house, and ascended to the door of his bedroom in the second story. It was locked. A stout colored man who accompanied Barton, making a battering-ram of his head, burst open the door. The General, in affright, sprang from his bed, but was instantly seized, and without being allowed to dress himself, was conveyed to the boat, and taken quickly across the bay to Warwick. Thence he was sent, under guard, to Washington's ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... The affright of those present was great. Now that they had perhaps killed her, they reflected it would have been as well, if they had taken warning from the former occasion, and approached very carefully a nature so capable ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller

... Child whose sounder Sleep Is broken with some fearful Dream's Affright, With froward Will doth set himself to weep, Ne can be stil'd for all his Nurse's Might, But kicks, and squalls, and shrieks for fell Despight; Now scratching her, and her loose Locks misusing, Now seeking Darkness, and now seeking Light; Then craving Suck, and then the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... the one with a beard. But Darby heeded him not; though Joan, a wrinkled old body, started up in affright, and yelled aloud. Neither of us attempting to gag her, she presently became quiet; and, after staring hard and asking some unintelligible questions, she proceeded to rouse ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... from the brink with a sensation of affright. "What an awful place!" she said, drawing a long breath. "Do you suppose any one ever fell ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge

... this I sing. Of this we will sup free, but moderately, And we will have no Pooly' or Parrot by; Nor shall our cups make any guilty men; But at our parting we will be as when We innocently met. No simple word That shall be uttered at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning; or affright The liberty ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... mess—then call the mixture Shakspeare. No more of him: my hopes are all evanish'd, For "Hexham's battle," slew him: "The Iron Chest" Sunk him to Shadwell's bathos; and "John Bull" Drove off in wild affright the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... empty of foreigners. Most of the English have fled in affright,—the Germans and French are wanted at home,—the Czar has recalled many of his younger subjects; he does not like the schooling they get here. That large part of the population, which lives by the visits of foreigners was suffering very much,—trade, industry, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... until he had reached his stable door. The sound of his hoofs as he galloped madly through the village awoke the cottagers, many of whom had been some hours in their beds. Many eager faces, staring with affright, gathered round the rectory, and added, by their various conjectures, to the terror ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... peering down into the lagoon, probably on the look-out for another turtle, when a large shark, coming as it seemed from beneath the boat, rose suddenly but quietly, and made a snatch at him. Johnny saw the monster barely in time; for just as he sprang up with a cry of affright, and fell backwards into the boat the shark's shovel-nose shot four feet above water at our stern, his jaws snapping together as he disappeared again, with a sound like the springing of a powerful steel-trap. Though baffled in his first attack, the voracious ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... of those incipient ecstasies of which Montaigne says that 'such transcending humours affright me as much as steep, high, and inaccessible ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... Mrs. Murray was a woman made principally of nerves. She was a constitutional fretter. It must be said in her justification that she came of a nervous race. There are different kinds of nervous people; this family did not belong to that limp class who start with affright at every noise, or faint at sight of a spider. Their nerves were too tightly drawn, and like a delicate stringed instrument, when a rude touch came, snap! went a string, making all life's music into ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston

... Notice of it; and the People of the Neighbourhood ran up in Crowds to an opposite Hill in order to see it: Nevertheless, altho' those in the Castle saw all this, they still remain'd so infatuated, as to imagine it all done only to affright 'em. At length the fatal Mine was sprung, and all who were upon that Battery lost their Lives; and among them those I first mentioned. The very Recital hereof made me think within my self, ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe

... disturb you, sir; I'll only just put this parcel on the table." There is no lock to Mr. Wilson's door. Armstrong stepped into the room, and almost immediately she heard a sound as of a violent blow, followed by a deep groan and then all was still. She was paralyzed with horror and affright. After the lapse of a few seconds, a voice—Mrs. Armstrong's undoubtedly—asked in a tremulous tone if "all was over?" Her husband answered "Yes: but where be the keys of the writing-desk kept?" "In the little ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... midst of the tumult, and while he was yet lost in wonder and speculation, the renegade Doe suddenly rushed into the wigwam, pale with affright and agitation. ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... at her with new wonderment. She had tossed back her loose hair, and stood tall and straight in the moonlight, her dark eyes gazing at him now calmly and without affright. She was dressed in rich yellow buckskin, as soft as chamois. Her throat was bare. A deep collar of lace fell over her shoulders. One hand, raised to her breast, revealed a wide gauntlet cuff of red or purple plush, of a fashion two centuries old. Her lips were parted, and he saw ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood

... blow; The fire restrains his wonted heat Where stand the dreaded Ravan's feet, And, necklaced with the wandering wave, The sea before him fears to rave. Kuvera's self in sad defeat Is driven from his blissful seat. We see, we feel the giant's might, And woe comes o'er us and affright. To thee, O Lord, thy suppliants pray To find some cure this ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... English had, indeed, sought by ghostly disguise to affright their foes, they had ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... returned, with spirits bright, No longer trembling with affright; At once he gaily cries, With laughing mouth and ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... entrance, and then, after the ill-assorted trio had gone up the great staircase and into the first gallery, Mr. Sleuth suddenly stopped short. The presence of those curious, still, waxen figures which suggest so strangely death in life, seemed to surprise and affright him. ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... Hercules! Fortune, the queen, delights to play with me, Stopping my passage with the sight of Visus: But as he makes hither, I'll make hence, There's more ways to the wood than one[190]. What, more devils to affright me? O Diabolo! Gustus comes here to vex me. So that I, poor wretch, am like A shuttlecock betwixt two battledoors. If I run there, Visus beats me to Scylla; If here, then Gustus blows me to Charybdis. Neptune hath sworn my hope shall suffer shipwreck. What shall ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... batophobia[obs3]; heartquake[obs3]; flutter, trepidation, fear and trembling, perturbation, tremor, quivering, shaking, trembling, throbbing heart, palpitation, ague fit, cold sweat; abject fear &c. (cowardice) 862; mortal funk, heartsinking[obs3], despondency; despair &c. 859. fright; affright, affrightment[obs3]; boof alarm[obs3][U.S.], dread, awe, terror, horror, dismay, consternation, panic, scare, stampede [of horses]. intimidation, terrorism, reign of terror. [Object of fear] bug bear, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... attend to the character which he gives of this army. You have heard what he tells you of the state of the country in which it was stationed, and of the terror which it struck into the inhabitants. The appearance of an English soldier was enough to strike the country people with affright and dismay: they everywhere, he tells you, fled before them. And yet they are the officers of this very army who are brought here as witnesses to express the general satisfaction of the people of India. To ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... maize in a sack are enough for an American to wander about in the forests alone for a whole month. With his carbine, he kills the wild cattle and deer for food and defends himself from the savages. The maize dampened serves him in lieu of bread .... The cold does not affright him. When a family tires of one location, it moves to another, and there it settles with the same ease. Thus in about eight years the settlement of Cumberland has been formed, which is now about to be created into ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... off; break off, I feel the different pace, Of som chast footing neer about this ground. Run to your shrouds, within these Brakes and Trees, Our number may affright: Som Virgin sure (For so I can distinguish by mine Art) Benighted in these Woods. Now to my charms, 150 And to my wily trains, I shall e're long Be well stock't with as fair a herd as graz'd About my Mother Circe. Thus I hurl My dazling Spells into ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... Williams, a Gentleman of worth, and a lover of Angling, that yet lives, and I wish he may: this was a deep bodied fish; and doubtless durst have devoured a Pike of half his own length; for I have told you, he is a bold fish, such a one, as but for extreme hunger, the Pike will not devour; for to affright the Pike, the Pearch will set up his fins, much like as a Turkie-Cock wil ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton

... vigilant Frenchmen; And the depths of the forest resound to the crack and the roar of their rifles; And seven writhing forms on the ground clutch the earth. From the pine-tops the screech-owl Screams and flaps his wide wings in affright, and plunges away through the shadows; And swift on the wings of the night flee the dim, phantom-forms through the darkness. Like cabris[80] when white wolves pursue, fled the four yet remaining Dakotas; Through forest and fen-land they flew, and wild terror howled on ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... sustained her in her hour of trial, but who, instead, turned against her, crushing her down, until in a state of desperation she had fled. It was in vain that the breakfast-bell rang out its loud summons. Grandma did not heed it; and when Corinda came up to seek her, she started back in affright at the scene before her. Mrs. Nichols's cap was not yet on, and her thin gray locks fell around her livid face as she swayed from side to side, moaning at intervals, "God forgive me ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... that the poor fellow would start up in wild affright, but his touch only resulted in a dull, incoherent muttering, and the shake had to be repeated two or three times before the fugitive slowly sat up and gazed at him vacantly, laying one hand upon his burning forehead ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn

... gospel creed That "God is Love" so plain I read, Shall dreams of heathen birth affright My pathway through the coming night? Ah, Lord of life, though spectres pale Fill with their threats the shadowy vale, With Thee my faltering steps to aid, How can I dare to ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... The bold ensample of their father's might Their weapons whetted and their wrath increased, "Come let us go," quoth he, "where yonder knight Upon our soldiers makes his bloody feast, Let not their slaughter once your hearts affright, Where danger most appears, there fear it least, For honor dwells in hard attempts, my sons, And greatest praise, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... at home to please Is a disease: To cross the seas to any foreign soil, Peril and toil: Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease, We are worse in peace;— What then remains, but that we still should cry For being born, or, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... from her mother's arms with affright in her face. Her uneasy looks wandered from Helene's hands to her shoulders; one of those hands was ungloved, and she started back from the touch of the moist palm and warm fingers with a fierce resentment, ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... nuns clung together and sobbed in their affright, and some were silent. Only Rosamund drew herself to her full height, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... Wolf of the North we once drove to his den, That quailed with affright 'neath the stern glance of men, With his pack has returned to the spoil; Then come from the mountain, the hamlet, the glen, And drive him ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... side by a wall of flame, and upon the other by a wall of water. Destruction and death seemed imminent. I dreamed that, trusting rather the mercy of the waves than the ferocity of the flames, I leaped into the billows and struggled like a Titan with them. I awoke, screaming with affright. ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... ear strained to listen for your breathing—dreading lest some sudden stroke should have quenched the light of that genius which you overtask—yet daring not to ask entrance, lest my presence should affright your other loves, the Muses? Yes, my dear husband, I have faith in the power of your genius; and for you this glorious sun has risen to-day. Chase those clouds from the heaven of your brow. They ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... the loud alarum bells— Brazen bells! What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! In the startled ear of night How they scream out their affright! Too much horrified to speak, They can only shriek, shriek, Out of tune, In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire Leaping higher, higher, higher, With ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... reprobation. That duty will be performed freely and fearlessly, by the author of this work, come weal or come woe. If these two "Knights of the Rueful Countenance" kill and eat a dozen Know Nothings, we know one member of the Order they will not affright into silence. For their cowardly assaults and their officious intermeddlings they may bare their backs to the lash. We will be with them to the bitter end, and will only forsake them in ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... thee, Polypheme? what strange affright Thus breaks our slumbers, and disturbs the night? Does any mortal, in the unguarded hour Of sleep, oppress thee, or by fraud or power? Or thieves insidious thy fair flock surprise?' Thus they; the Cyclop from ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... the woes of my sex!" "The legions of hearts you've been breaking Your conscience affright, and your reckoning perplex, Whene'er an account you've been taking!" "I'd scarcely believe How deeply you grieve At the mischief your eyes have ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.

... not help it. In spite of all her efforts to repress it, a little gasping squeal of affright broke from her. The Admiral, with a start, withdrew his eye quickly from the glass, and ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... who had come to Paris to see me act once asked me why, in the first scene with the Ghost, I betray no terror, while in the scene with the Queen I crouch in affright behind a chair, wild with alarm, the moment the phantom appears. I answered that in the first scene the Ghost comes before Hamlet as the image of a beloved and lamented parent, while in the second-named instance he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... Hypocrisy, whose tongue With many a fair, false, fatal art is hung, Like Bethel's fawning prophet, cross your way, When your great errand brooks not of delay; Nor let vain Fear, who cries to all she meets, Trembling and pale, 'A lion in the streets,' 590 Damp your free spirits; let not threats affright, Nor bribes corrupt, nor flatteries delight: Be as one man—concord success ensures— There's not an English heart but what is yours. Go forth—and Virtue, ever in your sight, Shall be your guide by day, your guard ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... the Dean and his lady! What! affright the Reverend Horace Mohun who counts Mrs. Rowe among the milk-white sheep of his flock! No; Mrs. Rowe is too prudent a woman—Now." As he ended, she drew forth a roll of notes. He made a clutch at ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... pasture, and were fain to take refuge for their lives in towers and high places. The Guadalquivir for a time became a roaring and tumultuous sea, inundating the immense plain of the Tablada and filling the fair city of Seville with affright. ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... field of France, or we may cram Within its wooden O, the very casques, That did affright the ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... thee, Nothing affright thee; All things are passing— God never changeth; Patient endurance ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... But they endeavoured to affright me with threats of danger, telling me (with inuendoes) that for all my pretence of innocency there was high matter against me, which, if I would stand out, would be brought forth, and that under my own hand. I knew not what they meant ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood

... gaped in affright at the horrid scene of strife, small revengeful fingers twisted themselves viciously in my auburn curls, and wresting from my grasp a "Child's Own Bible Concordance," a birthday outrage received from an Evangelical aunt, Julia Dolan, aged twelve, began to pound me about the face with ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... In this hurly-burly of affright and excitement, the missionary compressed his lips to keep back the tugging smile. He had caught the first words uttered by Kenton, identified his voice, and understood the cause of ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis

... an Auto de Fe, (a solemn ceremony held by the Inquisition for the punishment of heretics,) but sometimes worn as a punishment at other times, that the condemned one might be marked by his neighbors, and ever bear a signal that would affright and scare by the greatness of the punishment and disgrace; a plan, salutary it may be, but very grievous to the offender. It was made of yellow cloth, with a St. Andrew's cross upon it, of red. A rope was sometimes put around the neck as an ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... in eternal black and white. They delivered their challenge with the insolence and malignity of their progenitors of the Penal Days, and the result was such a tornado of national feeling as never shook the Irish capital before; a tornado before which the pigmies who raised it are shivering in affright. Magnificent as are the results in Ireland, however, our countrymen in England have achieved the real marvels of the campaign. They have brought the towering Liberal majority tumbling like a house of cards. They have in fifty-five constituencies set up or knocked down English candidates ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various

... strange indeed; for had he but come up And taken the Court in that affright and stirre While unresolv'd for whom or what to doe, Each on [of?] the other had in iealousie (While as apaled Maiestie not yet Had time to set the countenance), he would Have hazarded ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... the affrighted mariners for signal guns of distress from their foundering companions. During the whole time, says Columbus, it poured down from the skies, not rain, but as it were a second deluge. The seamen were almost drowned in their open vessels. Haggard with toil and affright, some gave themselves over for lost; they confessed their sins to each other according to the rites of the Catholic religion, and prepared themselves for death; many, in their desperation, called upon death as a welcome relief from such overwhelming horrors. In the midst ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... from thy forehead its garland away? To pluck from thy temples their chaplet enwreathed of the light, And bind on the brows of thy godhead a frontlet of night? Thou hast loosened the necks of thine horses, and goaded their flanks with affright, To the race of a course that we know not on ways that are hid from our sight. As a wind through the darkness the wheels of their chariot are whirled, And the light of its passage is night on the face of the world. 1400 And there falls from the wings of thy ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... petrified stare, caught his second daughter by her flaxen tail, and covered his face with his pocket-handkerchief. Morleena fell, all stiff and rigid, into the baby's chair, as she had seen her mother fall when she fainted away, and the two remaining little Kenwigses shrieked in affright. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... Falkingham, I love your cleverness," said the King, "and I will go further, I—" He stooped and whispered in her ear, but she drew back in affright and anxiety. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... this?' said the minister. 'Why, what have you been about, Tommy,' lifting the little petticoated lad, who was lying sobbing, with one vigorous arm. Tommy looked at him with surprise in his round eyes, but no affright—they ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... ken: Gods haunt the Half-Gods, Half-Gods men, And Man the brute. Gods, born of Night, Feel a blacker appetite Gape to devour them; Half-Gods dread But jealous Gods; and mere men tread Warily lest a Half-God rise And loose on them from empty skies Amazement, thunder, stark affright, Famine and sudden War's thick night, In which loud Furies hunt the Pities Through smoke ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various

... not a scene of evangelical habits. Women of loose class, flower-girls, fruit-sellers, and costermongers turned the forecastle into a pleasure-house where the pleasures were not always secret; where native modesty suffered no affright, and physical good cheer, with ribald paraphrase, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... eternity, With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight: Devise extremes beyond extremity, To make him curse this cursed crimeful night: Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright; And the dire thought of his committed evil Shape every bush a ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]

... near side to form a rest for her right foot, she climbed on the log and prepared to mount. Often and often she had ridden so—a man's saddle presented no difficulties; but now to her dismay the horse started back in affright at the first touch of her woman's draperies. If he refused to carry her what should she do? Should she let the horse go? No, that would never do. She made another effort, and at last scrambled into the saddle, how she could not have told herself, but once there she kept her seat, ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt

... anger and feminine affright filled the hall, but one ringing order for silence hushed all, and the dance stood still with Ned Ferry in its centre. In his right hand, shoulder high, he held not his sword, but Charlotte's fingers lightly poised for the turn in the arrested dance. "Stand, gentlemen, every man is covered ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... captivity. O let the earth Be heaped above my head in death before I hear thy cries as thou art borne away!" So speaking, mighty Hector stretched his arms To take the boy; the boy shrank crying back To his fair nurse's bosom, scared to see His father helmeted in glittering brass, And eying with affright the horsehair plume That grimly nodded from the lofty crest. At this both parents in their fondness laughed; And hastily the mighty Hector took The helmet from his brow and laid it down Gleaming upon the ground, and, having kissed ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... of France, awake to glory! Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise! Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary, Behold their tears and hear their cries! Shall hateful tyrants, mischief breeding, With hireling hosts, a ruffian band, Affright and desolate the land, While peace ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... of Phillip III. said to him with affright: The houses are falling in ruins, and none rebuild them; the inhabitants flee from the country; villages are abandoned, fields left uncultivated, and churches deserted. The Cortes in their turn said to him: ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880

... seal impressed. But gray Phillippevna the door Opened with care, and entering bore A cup of tea upon a tray. "'Tis time, my child, arise, I pray! My beauty, thou art ready too. My morning birdie, yesternight I was half silly with affright. But praised be God! in health art thou! The pains of night have wholly fled, Thy cheek ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... wave by the wild wind's blore Down from the clouds upon a ship doth light, And the whole hulk with scattering foam is white, And through the sails all tattered and forlorn Roars the fell blast: the seamen with affright Shake, and from death ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark

... you will know, By moone-shine did these Louers thinke no scorne To meet at Ninus toombe, there, there to wooe: This grizly beast (which Lyon hight by name) The trusty Thisby, comming first by night, Did scarre away, or rather did affright: And as she fled, her mantle she did fall; Which Lyon vile with bloody mouth did staine. Anon comes Piramus, sweet youth and tall, And findes his Thisbies Mantle slaine; Whereat, with blade, with bloody blamefull blade, He brauely broacht his boiling bloudy breast, And ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... the sea-dead three nights come keening And crying to my door. Why will they affright me with their threening Forevermore! O have they no grave in the salt sea-places To lay them in? Do they know, do they know—with their cold dead faces!— Know ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice

... is death, it is the necessarie object of our aime: if it affright us, how is it possible we should step one foot further without an ague? The remedie of the vulgar sort is, not to think on it. But from what brutall stupiditie may so grosse a blindnesse come upon him? he must be made to bridle his ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... She paused in affright, for her husband had seized her violently by the arm; then he plucked the gleaming Bowie knife from its sheath, and ere she could scream out, the murderous blade was buried ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... always between good and evil, between to do and not to do, between daring and not daring. In his youth, a thought, not of virtue, but of Italian ambition—the ambition however which may be profitable to nations—had passed through his soul like lightning; but he recoiled in affright, and the remembrance of this one brilliant moment of his youth presented itself hourly to him, and tortured him like the incessant throbbing of an old wound, instead of acting upon him as an excitement to a new life. Between the risk of losing, if he failed, the crown of his little kingdom, and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... wall; and to have seen him, you would have thought it had been a great carrick of five hundred tons upon one end. In this manner he entered into the great hall where they were banqueting, and that very boldly, which did much affright the company; yet, because his arms were tied in, he could not reach anything to eat, but with great pain stooped now and then a little to take with the whole flat of his tongue some lick, good bit, or morsel. Which when his father saw, he knew well enough that they had ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... in the sight of those angry hosts. But it was not so. No change passed over his countenance; his brow was open as it was before; the colour never left his cheeks; and, with almost a smile, he turned unto the servant, and said, "And why does this affright thee?" "It is for thee they seek, my father—it is for thee they seek; and the wicked men of the town are ready to fall upon thee and deliver thee into their hands. Even now, as I walked along the street, they looked on me with fierce and cruel eyes; ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce

... the remote corner whither he had fled. The miser was not at home in a tempest, and this was already beyond his depth. He gasped in speechless amaze and affright. Was this the girl he had thought to mold as his wife, this fearless, defiant creature? Already he began to congratulate himself upon his lucky escape. "She would murder me some day," ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... affright in her heart, Oh, if her father were only there! For a long time she dared not move, but stood and watched the quiet face. Then, suddenly, the lips began to mutter unintelligible things, and Polly's eyes dilated in terror. That September night, when Colonel ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd

... St. Lo's gibes, which should have fallen as cold water alike on his hopes and his passion, had but fed the desire to know the best. For all that, he might not have spoken now, if he had not caught her look of affright; strange as it sounds, that look, which of all things should have silenced him and warned him that the time was not yet, stung him out of patience. Suddenly the man in him ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... hand to clasp, And a cold gauntlet met his grasp: The phantom's sex was changed and gone, Upon its head a helmet shone; Slowly enlarged to giant size, With darkened cheek and threatening eyes, The grisly visage, stern and hoar, To Ellen still a likeness bore.— He woke, and, panting with affright, Recalled the vision of the night. The hearth's decaying brands were red And deep and dusky lustre shed, Half showing, half concealing, all The uncouth trophies of the hall. Mid those the stranger fixed his eye Where that huge ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... and unprotected! No blade was in His hand; no ring of fire blazed round about Him to affright the prowling brutes. And yet He was unharmed! Not a tooth nor a claw left scratch or gash upon Him! Why was it? It will never do to fall back upon the miraculous, for the very point of the story of the Temptation is His sublime refusal to sustain Himself ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham



Words linked to "Affright" :   terrify, fear, dismay, shake up, appall, frighten, dread, panic, consternate, terrorize, bluff, stimulate, awe, spook, stir



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