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Athlete   Listen
noun
Athlete  n.  
1.
(Antiq.) One who contended for a prize in the public games of ancient Greece or Rome.
2.
Any one trained to contend in exercises requiring great physical agility and strength; one who has great activity and strength; a champion.
3.
One fitted for, or skilled in, intellectual contests; as, athletes of debate.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Athlete" Quotes from Famous Books



... to acquire the well-known accomplishments of the real Arthur Dillon, who had sung and danced his way into the hearts of his friends, who had been a wit for a boy, bubbling over with good spirits, an athlete, a manager of amateur minstrels, a precocious gallant among the girls, a fighter ever ready to defend the weak, a tireless leader in any enterprise, and of a bright mind, but indifferent to study. ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... restored to their normal condition. We have proved, therefore, that in exhaustion resulting from emotion or from physical work a certain number of the brain-cells are permanently lost. This is the probable explanation of the fact that an athlete or a race-horse trained to the point of highest efficiency can reach his maximum record but once in his life. Under certain conditions, however, it is possible that, though some chromatin is forever lost, the remainder may ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile

... increasing enjoyment—Grubbs resisted him less and less, till finally he slipped feebly down on the floor and grovelled there, gasping and groaning. Beau gave him one or two more artistic cuts, and stood above him, with the serene, triumphant smile of a successful athlete. Suddenly a loud peal of laughter echoed from the doorway,—a woman stood there, richly dressed in silk and fur, with diamonds sparkling in her ears and diamonds clasping the long boa at her ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... work, got to his feet with the imperative need of an athlete for the open. He started out of the room, but as an afterthought scribbled a nervous line, telling the Captain he might not be back for dinner. Then he found his hat and coat and walked briskly around the piazza ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... entirely underestimated, and in the combat which ensued the very smallness of the "Monitor" gave her a great advantage, in the swiftness of her movements, over her gigantic opponent, not unlike an undersized but agile and skilful athlete in encounter with a large and lumbering, though more powerful, antagonist. Lieutenant Worden was the hero of the occasion in the rapidity of his manoeuvring, while Lieutenant Jones, now in command of the "Merrimac," was surprised to find that his shot made no impression on the "Monitor." ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro

... magnitude that it penetrated the stone walls of Amaryllis' house, swept in after the servant. Quaking menials began to pour into the hall. Among them came the blue-eyed girl, the athlete and Juventius the Swan. These three joined their mistress who stood under a hanging lamp. Into the passage from the court, left open by the frightened servants, swept the prolonged outcry of perishing Jerusalem. Over it all thundered the boom of the siege-engines ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... of things, the officer who has been an athlete can fit himself into this part of the program with little difficulty and with great credit, provided he acts with the moderation that is here suggested. The armed services put great store by this. A ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... lie and cheat for it as they lied for their lords in a feudal conspiracy, or cheated for their chieftains in a Highland feud. We may say that the vassal readily committed treason; but it is equally true that he readily endured torture. So does the American athlete endure torture. Not only the self-sacrifice but the solemnity of the American athlete is like that of the American Indian. The athletes in the States have the attitude of the athletes among the Spartans, the great historical nation without a sense of humour. They suffer an ascetic ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... That kind of man is born often enough, but he seldom stays with his birthright. I knew that the railway of railways was no school for the humanities; but this university graduate, Chancellor of Queen's, distinguished counsel and potential eminent judge, bachelor, Canadian born, every inch an athlete and as rugged as Carpentier, seemed to my aroused imagination one who would be as much bigger than the stodgy C.P.R. as that system was greater than others of ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... HOW TO BECOME AN ATHLETE. Giving full instruction for the use of dumb-bells, Indian clubs, parallel bars, horizonal bars and various other methods of developing a good healthy muscle; containing over sixty illustrations. Every boy can become strong and healthy ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"

... of the most popular masters in the school. He was a keen athlete and a tactful master. Fenn and Kennedy knew him well, through having played at the nets and in scratch games with him. They both liked him. If Kennedy had had to select a house-master, he would have chosen Mr Blackburn first. But Mr Dencroft ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... of few words. But there was between them a strong bond of sympathy, despite the disparity in their age and belief. McDonald was a Catholic and single. Younger by ten years than the other, he was much the stronger and abler, the athlete of a camp where there were ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... here, there, backward and forward, alert, accurate, bubbling with energy . . . Once, a mad rollicking impulse seized and urged him to vault the net and take her in his arms and hold her still for a moment. But he knew. She was using him as an athlete uses a trainer before a ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... life," said once a magnificent young athlete, a great pedestrian, to me, "is to rest when you are tired." And, I should add, to dry and warm yourself by a big fire when wet and cold, and to eat and drink when you are hungry and thirsty. All these pleasures were now ours, for very soon ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... transfigured. Brightness leaped into his look, and the greyness of his moody eye became as blue as the sea. The professional straightness of his figure relaxed into the elastic grace of an athlete. He was a pipe to be played on: an actor with the ambitious brain of a diplomatist; as weak as water, and as strong as steel; soft-hearted to foolishness or ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... secures the uniform development, on sound anatomical and physiological principles, of every muscle in the human body, instead of aiming at the hypertrophy of an isolated set. I do not mean by this to deny the value of the old style gymnasium, our Island will possess as good a one as any athlete could desire. Horseback riding will form another admirable means of effecting our purpose, especially where the patient suffers from more than the usual opiate torpidity of the liver. We shall have room enough if not for an extended ride at least for a mile track ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... Pers. Pahluwan (from Pahlau) a brave, a warrior, an athlete, applied in India to a champion in any gymnastic exercise, especially in wrestling. The Frenchman calls him "Balavan"; and the Bresl. text in more than one place (p. 312) ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... and made his name famous as well in the Serb literary world. He had always treated her as his companion, and not as the average Montenegrin treats a woman—as a being of inferior quality and a better class of servant. Marko had a wonderful character; a great athlete, perfect rifle-shot, and a military warrior and leader of men, he brought home during his campaigns over one hundred Turkish heads; but he was also a refined gentleman, a true poet, and merciful to his enemies. He was a notable exception in the matter of prisoners—he always let them go unharmed, ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... many years. She was a Portuguese of Macao, and though her three daughters and two sons were strong and robust, she had always struck him as being of a delicate physique—the very antithesis of her husband, whose fame as an athlete was known from one end of the Pacific to the other. Presently ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke

... Longboat, Sockalexis, Bemus Pierce, Frank Hudson, Tewanima, Metoxen, Myers, Bender, and Jim Thorpe. Thorpe is a graduate of the Carlisle school, and at the Olympic Games in Sweden in 1912 he won the title of the greatest all-round athlete in the world. ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman

... true athlete, the man who exercises himself against such appearances. Stay, wretch, do not be carried away. Great is the combat, divine is the work; it is for kingship, for freedom, for happiness, for freedom from perturbation. Remember God, call on him as a helper and ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... years old he was fully as strong as the average man of thirty, and far more agile than the most practiced athlete ever becomes. And day by day his ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... on the great West front of the Cathedral. Mark apprehended more clearly than ever the powerful personality of Father Rowley when he found that these noble young animals accorded to him the same quality of respect that they gave to a popular master or even to a popular athlete. The Missioner seemed able to understand their intimate and allusive conversation, so characteristic of a small and highly developed society; he seemed able to chaff them at the right moment; to take them seriously when they ought to be taken seriously; in a word to have grasped without ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... transparency of the horizon line the outlines of half a dozen horsemen were seen looming nearer and nearer with every moment; they were some Spahis who had been out sweeping the country for food. The mighty frame of Chateauroy, almost as unclothed as an athlete's, started from its slumberous, panting rest; his eyes lightened hungrily; he muttered a fiery oath; "Mort de ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... but once in a week or so, are unskilled in early morning hustles, and generally see the tail-end of the express disappearing in the cutting. This morning, however, I managed to get out of the house by three minutes to eight, sufficient time for an athlete to do the half-mile to the station. With a silent prayer that the train might be a few minutes overdue I raced across the lot and ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... ruffles of finest linen, black silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes, was energetic, graceful, and well proportioned. With such a physique it was not wonderful that Mr. Jefferson was famous as shot, horseman, and athlete, even among such noted sportsmen as Virginia could boast of by the score in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Suddenly he lowered his head and, withdrawing his gaze from the mountains, looked about him with an ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... that the latter was already married under the alias of Marmaduke Moorsdyke had prevented the match. Since then Sir Ernest had been their implacable and relentless enemy, and his desperate attempt to kidnap Lady Margaret had only been frustrated by the skill and courage of the famous athlete, Ralph Wonderson. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various

... place deserted. He found himself mistaken, however, for a boy came from the ruins and faced him. He was slightly taller than Paul, and of slimmer build; but he was none the less well proportioned, and his limbs moved with the easy movement of a young athlete. In spite of the dusk, Paul recognized him. He was one of the senior boys of St. Bede's—the scholars of which were the deadly rivals of Paul's school. There had been a perpetual feud between St. Bede's and Garside for many years. Sometimes it would be patched up for a week or ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... know, too, that in one corner of her white-and-blue bathroom reposed a pair of wooden dumb-bells, their ankles neatly crossed. She used them daily. Also she bathed, massaged, exercised, took facial and electric treatments; worked like a slave; lived like an athlete in training in order to preserve her hair, skin, teeth, and figure; almost never ate what she wanted nor as much ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... more will of his own than a slave has, to the triumphal chariot of this delightful little creature, and as he hoped and believed—for ever. And he was a man worth capturing. He was tall and slim, but muscular, and looked like an athlete, and at the time he had one of those handsome, open faces which women like so much. His honest, dark eyes showed strength of will, courage and strong passions, and that, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... for the will of the majority, while his more retiring brother discovers that one man's vote is as good as another's. When one has seen a club of ambitious lads who, when they first organized, cared only for success, reject a boy who is a good debater and athlete on the ground that in another club he had shown that "he was a sorehead and couldn't seem to understand that the majority's got to rule," one is tempted to feel that organization can do so much for the children that an organized library club ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... man severally after the manner of God. Bear the maladies of all, as a perfect athlete. Where there is much toil, there is much gain. If thou lovest good scholars, this is not thankworthy in thee. Rather bring the more pestilent to submission by gentleness.... The season requireth thee, as pilots require winds, or as a storm-tossed mariner a haven, that it may attain ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... the larger and older youth, who had arrived almost at man's estate. He was quite an athlete among his people, and could scarcely restrain his eagerness to attack the pale face, who had vanquished an opponent younger and weaker than himself. Ogallah nodded his head, and, amid a noise which may be called ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... of man he was". His armour was lavishly adorned with gold: from the cheek-piece of his helmet, from his pilum and his spear hung purple pennants; his whole equipment was magnificent and kingly. Bestriding a very tall war-horse he played the game of a military athlete with accomplished skill. He wheeled his horse first to the right, then to the left, in graceful curves; then he tossed his spear on high to the morning breezes and caught it in the middle as it descended with quivering fall; then he threw it deftly from one hand to another, ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... I close. This Dichotomy, so far as I can see, applies only to man. Woman appears to be a kind of hybrid. Regarded as a creature of instinct, she resembles the Red-blood, and it is to him that she is first attracted. The hero of her youth is the athlete, the soldier, the successful man of business; and this predilection of hers accounts for much of human history, and in particular for the maintenance of the military spirit. On the other hand, as a creature capable of and craving sympathy, she has affinities ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... work and speed of foot are intriguing challenges for the youngsters. On the other hand, placement, guile, patience, and the faster ball that actually provides more time for retrieval make Squash Tennis the ideal sport for the "older" athlete who wants to preserve that straight waistline all of his life. The average age of the ranking ...
— Squash Tennis • Richard C. Squires

... Mary Louise, all out of breath with running, for that Chocolate Man was the best athlete in all Peppermint City, "I said I was lost. I'm not a poetry maker. I wouldn't make poetry for anything. I want to see things, not ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory

... He had a certain decision of manner, not in the least arrogant, but the result of a serene self-surety that somehow accorded with his lithe, trained grace of movement. A judge of men would have read him an athlete, perhaps ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram

... said, and fair and strong. He had been in the eleven at Eton and left Oxford with a record for all that should turn a beautiful Englishman into a perfect athlete. Books had not worried him much! The fit of a hunting-coat, the pace of a horse, were things of more importance, but he scraped through his "Smalls" and his "Mods," and was considered by his friends to be anything but a fool. As for his mother—the Lady Henrietta ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... keen delight, The sleigh-drive through the frosty night, The rustic party, with its rough Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff, And whirling plate, and forfeits paid, His winter task a pastime made. Happy the snow-locked homes wherein He tuned his merry violin, Or played the athlete in the barn, Or held the good dame's winding-yarn, Or mirth-provoking versions told Of classic legends rare and old, Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome Had all the commonplace of home, And little seemed at best the odds 'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods; ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... to Kling's who looks as if he had been a college athlete, and knows it all. Can't fool him for a cent," was the talk now, instead of "Keep at the old Dutchman and you may get it. He don't know the difference between a Chippendale sideboard and a shelf rack from Harlem. Wait for a rainy day and go ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... voice was now weak and uncertain. Her speech painfully hesitant. She who had been so strong, so brave, was now both easily frightened and readily confused. She who had once walked with the grace and power of an athlete was now in terror of an up-rolled rug upon the floor. Every time I looked at her my throat ached with remorseful pain. Every plan I made included a vow to make her happy if I could. My success ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... watch, and preserve a wakeful spirit.... Be thou wise as the serpent in all things, and harmless always as the dove.... The time requireth thee, as pilots require winds, or as a storm-tossed mariner a haven, so that it may find God.... Be sober, as God's athlete.... Stand firm as an anvil under the stroke of the hammer. It becomes a great athlete to endure blows and to conquer.... Show thyself more zealous than thou art.... Let nothing be done without thy consent, neither do thou anything without ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... better than they had done it, would be received in silence. I could not see the reason for this, and the fact itself hurt me much more than anyone guessed. Then as they would not signify by their approbation that I was the best athlete in the class, I took to telling them that I was, which did not help matters. I find it is the same in the world as it is at the Academy—that if one wants recognition, he must pretend not to see that he ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... to such an assemblage of qualities a high profession of piety is added, the effect becomes overpowering. We sink under the contemplation of such exquisite and manifold perfection; and feel, with deep humility, how presumptuous it was in us to think of composing the legend of this beatified athlete of the faith, St Bertrand ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... who is a good man, but his strength is in his limbs. He's an athlete, but turn him loose in a field as full of ideas as a clover field of blossoms, and he can't preach a good sermon. Let Dr. Anna Shaw enter the same field and she will gather blossoms of thought faster than you can store them away in your ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... for this, and he was taken aback for a moment. Still, although he knew Merriwell was a far better all-round athlete, he believed he could more than match him in boxing, so he eagerly ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish

... man without answering. He was medium tall, with the body of an athlete, though perhaps ten years beyond the age of sports. He had a manner of contained energy. ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet

... Chepstow, surprised at the sudden radiance in Nigel's face, seeing before her for the first time a man she could not read, but a man whose physique now forcibly appealed to her—seemed to become splendid under some inward influence, as a half-naked athlete's does when he slowly fills his lungs, clenches his fists, and hardens all his muscles. "What ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... still quite a boy in his habits and ideas; but physically he is rapidly springing up into a young man. That reminds me of another point on which I will ask you to speak earnestly to him. I must tell you that he has attained some distinction among his school-fellows here as an athlete. Within due bounds I do not discourage bodily exercises: they are a recognized part of our system. But I am sorry to say that Cashel has not escaped that tendency to violence which sometimes results from the possession of unusual strength and dexterity. ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... me. It's not the size, my boy"—to the youth. "Size is nothing. It's the proportion, the capacity for putting out strength. I've been an athlete myself and I'm no chicken yet. But our friend here ought to be a Hercules. Will you take a drink? You'll excuse the glass." He offered Ned a flask half ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... has graduated from your Institute, even though it be with low rank, insures his possession of technical knowledge sufficient for our purpose. If, at the same time, he is a gentleman endowed with the faculty of making friends, as well as an athlete willing to meet and able to overcome physical difficulties, I would employ him in preference to a more studious person who lacked any of these qualifications. If you, for instance, had not already decided upon a plan for spending the ensuing year, I should not hesitate ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe

... the first winter since I could remember that I never caught a cold. A cold? I never once sniffled. My health was perfect; never even so much as a pimple. My dandruff and athlete's foot disappeared. I had a wonderful appetite—which was lucky, since I didn't have much other recreation left. And I didn't ...
— Inside John Barth • William W. Stuart

... brave who declared that he would die young, yet not by his own hand. Tamahay was of heroic proportions, herculean in strength, a superb runner; in fact, he had all the physical qualities of an athlete or a typical Indian. In his scanty dress, he was beautiful as an antique statue in living bronze. When a mere youth, seventeen years of age, he met with an accident which determined his career. It was the loss of an eye, a fatal injury to the sensitive and high-spirited Indian. He announced ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... Atlases moving along the roads, chaplets of frangipani upon their curling hair, or perhaps a single gardenia or tube-rose behind their ears, singing softly and treading steadily, smiling, and all with a burden that would stagger a white athlete. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... Life Guards. I belonged to a gymnastic and fencing and boxing club, of which I was a most assiduous frequenter; a more persevering dumb-beller and Indian-clubber never was, and I became in time an all-round athlete, as wiry and lean as a greyhound, just under fifteen stone, and four inches over six feet in height, which was considered very tall thirty years ago; especially in Pentonville, where the distinction often brought me more contumely ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... utterly opposite characters—it is necessary to say that their friendship had been formed at school, after which, a train of circumstances had nursed it to maturity. At school, Devenish had been an athlete, superior to Traill in every sport that he took up. You have there the ground for approval and a certain strain of sympathy between the two men. The fact that at the 'Varsity Devenish had developed taste for dress was outweighed ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... in great satisfaction. "That is settled. That shall be his name. Hello, there, Frank Merriwell, the younger! I'll make an athlete of you, you rascal! I'll give you such advantages to start with ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... approaching marriage of his sister Bell, to attend which he had hastened home; and knew, also, that some of the Cedar Creek household would be there. Sinewy athlete as Sam Holt was, he could not frame his lips to ask whether Linda might be one of them. But how often had he to put the question resolutely away during that and the next day's travelling? And what would have been his disappointment if, on entering the family at Mapleton, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... apprentice, wielding a hammer and driving in hot rivets. Here she was very popular and became local secretary of the International Brotherhood of Boiler-makers. In physical development she was now somewhat of an athlete. "She could outrun any of her friends on a sprint; she could kick higher, play baseball, and throw the ball overhand like a man, and she was fond of football. As a wrestler she could throw most of the club members." The physician who examined her for an insurance policy ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... head inclined to meet it: so that it was like the support to a broad blunt pillar. The cropped head was flat as an owl's; the chest of immense breadth; the bulgy knees and big hands were those of a dwarf athlete. Strong colour, lying full on him from the neck to the forehead, made the big veins purple and the eyes fierier than the movements of his mind would have indicated. He was simply studying the character of his man. Luigi feared him; he was troubled chiefly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... as a butcher again," he announced as he trotted steadily around to Bobby, suddenly stopping short with an expansive grin across his wide face and a handshake that it took an athlete to withstand. "Got to cut it down or it'll put me on the blink. What's the ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... demeanor. It seems a brutal thing that a big strong man should waste his years in a dental establishment when the world is clamoring for strong men to do the heavy lifting jobs. But before you can say anything, this muscular athlete has laid violent hands on your palpitating form and wadded it abruptly into the hideous embraces of a red plush chair, which looks something like the one they use up at Sing Sing, only it's done more quickly up there and with less suffering on the part of ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb

... Sanborn was a thick-set, sturdy fellow with the clear brown tan and clear brown eyes of the Californian. Brewer was from South Carolina, a lean, lanky Southerner, with deep-set dark eyes. Dixon hailed from Massachusetts, from a fighting family, and from Harvard, where he had been a noted athlete. He was a big, lithe, handsome boy, red-faced and curly-haired. Purcell was a New-Yorker, of rich family, highly connected, and his easy, clean, fine ways, with the elegance of his person, his blond distinction, made him stand out from his khaki-clad comrades, though he was clad identically ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... Unlike most men who are indifferent to the outside world he was clean, because he found that slovenliness impaired his efficiency, and took the edge off his energy. He was as fastidious mentally as a trained athlete is physically. ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... stalwart figures, who, they concluded, were but the leaders of following force. One of the men was hardy enough to turn at bay at the moment Walcot had cleared his way at last up to the front. Big bully though he was, he was no match for the well-conditioned, active athlete who faced him, and Walcot punished him in a manner that made him glad enough to take to his heels as fast ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... wrote a charming booklet entitled Wheel Magic, which was all about his rambles on the machine and its effect on him. He is not an athlete—on the contrary he is a bookish man who has written books enough to fill a cart, and has had so much to do with books all his life that one might imagine he had by some strange accident been born in the reading-room of the British Museum; or that originally he had actually been ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... Miss Baillie, had scarcely any success with the ball. She lent it to Miss Leslie, who saw a large, square, old- fashioned red sofa covered with muslin, which she found in the next country house she visited. Miss Baillie's brother, a young athlete (at short odds for the amateur golf championship), laughed at these experiments, took the ball into the study, and came back looking "gey gash". He admitted that he had seen a vision, somebody he knew "under a lamp". He would discover during the week whether he saw right or not. This ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... to strip off all hampering clothing. It was as much a heat-death symptom as sleep forbodes frost death. He did not walk in a daze as the old man rode, half numbness, half drowse. He walked with a throb—throb—throb in his temples like the fall of water. He wanted to run; to strip himself as an athlete for a race; and all the time, he kept walking as if the heaving earth went writhing away from ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... stood sentinel beside her during the early part of the evening. He had assumed the proudest and most exclusive airs with regard to her, and his chief aim seemed to be to impress upon her the prestige he enjoyed among his fellows as a football player and an athlete. In the end his patronage and his boasting had become insupportable to a girl of any spirit. And his dancing! It seemed to her that he held her before him like a shield, and then charged the room with her. She had found ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... born adventurer," laughed Margaret. "No professional athlete would have attempted what you've done. It's a wonder your walk didn't end in a broken neck. Whatever did your ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... by artists, although regularly occurring, and seems to have been as little known before instantaneous photography was introduced as were most of the phases of the horse's gallop. The positions assumed when in the air by a high-jump athlete are almost incredible as revealed by the camera. He appears to be sitting in a most uncomfortable way on the rope over which he ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... sacrifice offered by the tutor, the skill of the princes, as archers, was tested on foot, on horseback, in howdahs, and in chariots; then they indulged in mock fights with swords and bucklers, closely watched by Drona, who pronounced his favorite Arjuna, the third Pandav, the finest athlete ever seen. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... whom Alene's timidity would have appealed, but he was not one of that kind. He was the most outspoken and the least gentle of all the boys with whom the Happy-Go-Luckys associated. But his downright honesty and fearlessness, his renown among the boys as an athlete, and especially his devotion to his little sister which Laura dilated upon, and of which new proofs were daily shown, had awakened Alene's admiration, and made her the more resent his calling ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... was a lad of nerve, with whom at such a moment to think was to act. Well it was that he had the muscles and strength of a trained athlete. ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish

... seems not to have known, that the 'Palaestra' was called 'nitida,' as shining with the oil which the wrestlers used for making their limbs supple, and the more difficult for their antagonist to grasp. Juvenal gives the epithet 'ceromaticum' to the neck of the athlete, or wrestler, which word means 'rubbed ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... speaking of having read about you in the paper—he was saying that you were the kind of man we need for president of our country club, instead of some dude like that sissified Buck Simpson. Buck is as punk an athlete as he is a shoeman, and, believe me, Mr. Appleby, we've got the makings of a fine country club. We expect to have a club-house and tennis-courts and golluf-links and all them things before long. We got a croquet-ground right now! ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... that this literary faculty, unusual at the age of eight, had been attained by a girl in the physical condition of an athlete, who could climb a tree like ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... will add a second one. "He was a splendid all-round athlete," says another friend, who knew him at this time, in the British and Foreign School Society's London college. "Six feet two or three in height, and with a fine muscular development, he could box, wrestle, fence, or row with all comers, and beat them with ridiculous ease. No one ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... have me, my friend. That raises another question. Do you remember the athlete Theophantes? He towered over the people a whole head's length, whereas Pericles was no larger than you. But whom do we call ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... him. She looked like a spirit of the woods, on a day when red buds and white blossoms are mingled; she was not handsome, but striking, fresh, and with an early morning brightness in her eyes; she was an untrained athlete of the farm, ready to put a back-log into the yawning fire-place or to choke a greedy calf off from its mother. She had no manners and was shy; and, without knowing how to play with a man's affection, was coy. Lyman looked into her eyes and thought of the bluish ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read

... a flash. Larry was close upon him now, and with a snarl of rage launched a blow full at Phil Forrest's face. But he had not reckoned on the lad's agility, nor did he know that Phil was a trained athlete. Therefore, Larry's surprise was great when his fist ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... preach temperance to me," went on George. "I know that liquor isn't good for me. I hate the stuff, as a matter of fact. I know what it does to a man who has been an athlete. It gets him quicker than it gets any one else. But the liquor makes me forget that I'm no good. It makes me think I'm the biggest, bravest and best man in the world, and God knows I'm not. When I get enough of the stuff inside of me, I imagine that I'm ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... characterized by the mingled grace and alertness which may be seen when well-proportioned limbs are trained to every kind of athletic exercise. His face, however, was that of the dreamer, not of the athlete. He had a fine brow, thoughtful brown eyes, a somewhat long nose with sensitive nostrils, a stern-set mouth, and resolute chin. The spare outlines of his face, well defined yet delicate withal, sometimes reminded strangers of Giotto's ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... of meadow land that joins the stable and the garden, we heard a muffled roar, and as we looked round we saw a creature with tossing horns and waving tail making for us, head down, eyes flashing. Kitty gave a shriek. We chanced to be near a pair of low bars. I hadn't been a college athlete for nothing. I swung Kitty over the bars, and jumped after her. But she, not knowing in her fright where she was nor what she was doing; supposing, also, that the mad creature, like the villain in the play, would "still ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... enormous meal, had fallen asleep. He flung himself off, keeping the animal between himself and his supposed enemy, pulled the other revolver and fired at Sidney across the plunging horse. Before he could fire again, Sidney, who was an athlete, brought down the loaded head of his cane on the pistol wrist ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... one fact in which every man's sin is conquered and neutralised, and every man's struggles may be made hopeful and successful, the great fact that Jesus Christ, God's own Son, came down from heaven, like an athlete descending into the arena, to fight with and to overcome the grim wild beasts, our passions and our sins, and to lead them, transformed, in the silken ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... was a trained athlete, and a skillful climber as well, and, difficult as the ascent proved to be for him, he managed it, and clambered over the sill of the window and into the room, ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart

... others, more moderate but less logical, who would teach us that in uniting with the antique, the mediaeval art of the fifteenth century purified and sanctified the beautiful but evil child of Paganism, that the goddess of Scopas and the athlete of Polyclete were raised to a higher sphere when Raphael changed the one into a Madonna, and Michel Angelo metamorphosed the other into a prophet. But both schools of criticism are wrong. Every civilization has its inherent evil; antiquity had its' inherent evils, as the Middle Ages ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... The distinguished athlete went on for half an hour, performing his antics; and Noddy repeated them, though he had never before attempted some of ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic

... best runners in each class of the different schools; and the best runner of all proved to be Sakane, of our own fifth class, who came in first by nearly forty yards without seeming even to make an effort. He is our champion athlete, and as good as he is strong—so that it made me very happy to see him with his arms full of prize books. He won also a fencing contest decided by the breaking of a little earthenware saucer tied to the left arm of each combatant. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... here, then," responded a heavier voice, as a splendid young giant swung himself up on deck and ran his fingers through a shock of curling chestnut hair; a glorious youth, six feet and over in his hose of hodden gray, with the shoulders and sinews of an athlete, and the calm, strong face of ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... province of Kling that among the officers of the King was a man of extraordinary strength, named Badang. Now there was a powerful athlete at the court of the King of Kling, who had no rival in the country. His name was Madia-Bibjaya-Pelkrama. The King ordered him to go to Singapore with seven vessels; "Go," said he, "and wrestle with this officer. If he defeat you, give him as a prize ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... She had a look that worshipful girl friends bravely called "regal." A head taller than her father, she was as straight and jauntily poised as a boy athlete; and her brown hair and her brown eyes were like her mother's, but for the rest she went back to some stronger and livelier ancestor than ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington

... of Americans that they alone were ashamed to be poor, and that, unless they could offer an expensive supper, dinner, or luncheon, they could not ask their friends to come to see them. Then, again, the doctors, it was urged, had discovered that tea was the best stimulant for the athlete and for the brain-worker. English "breakfast tea" kept nobody awake, and was the most delightful of appetizers. The cup of tea and a sandwich taken at five o'clock spoiled no one's dinner. The ladies of ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... kindly, uncritical audience that had assembled for the exercises, and saw not a single face that had come for his sake alone. Many were there who were interested in him because they had known him through the years, and because he bore the reputation of being the honor man of his class and the finest athlete in school. But that was not like having some one of his very own who cared whether he did well or not. He found himself wishing that even Buck might have been there; Buck, the nearest to a brother he had ever had. Would Buck have cared that he had ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... a fine athlete—one of the fastest and most determined Rugby forwards that I have ever known, though he played so savage a game that he was never given his international cap. He was well-grown, five foot nine perhaps, with square shoulders, ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... abord du San Miguel; no von see, no von hear. I know in my heart you loaf me; tell me so vonce! Blanca!" The music and entreaty in the deep voice thrill me strangely. "Oh, Blanca darling, keess me!" My puny resistance is nothing to those athlete's arms; he holds me close one instant and I, breathless, struggle to free my hands, and push his hot cheek ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins

... education embraces the symmetrical development of mind, body and heart. An old and wise writer has said, "Cultivate the physical exclusively, and you have an athlete or a savage; the moral only, and you have an enthusiast or a maniac; the intellectual only, and you have a diseased oddity,—it may be a monster. It is only by wisely training all of them together that the ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... moment. I should have some theory for that." A blither spectacle than the vigour with which he sets about the task, it were hard to fancy. He is possessed by a demoniac energy, welding the elements for his life, and bending ideas, as an athlete bends a horseshoe, with a visible and lively effort. He has, in theorising, a compass, an art; what I would call the synthetic gusto; something of a Herbert Spencer, who should see the fun of the thing. You are not bound, and no more is he, to place your faith in these brand-new opinions. But ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... his ears, the edge of his soul gradually wears away, and the passionate or spirited element is melted out of him. Too little spirit is easily exhausted; too much quickly passes into nervous irritability. So, again, the athlete by feeding and training has his courage doubled, but he soon grows stupid; he is like a wild beast, ready to do everything by blows and nothing by counsel or policy. There are two principles in man, reason and passion, ...
— The Republic • Plato

... army in check, to levy a tax of six millions a-month upon this country, and render abortive a military reputation built upon unparalleled traditions. This is indeed a bitter reflection, a painful reminder that the advance of science has placed the athlete and the cripple almost upon ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... of the stairs. Then when Hal said, "Jack fell down——" there was a terrific plunge and Philip tumbled, head over heels, all the way downstairs, with the big copper bucket rolling bumpety-bump down beside him. He was a trained athlete, and knew how to fall without hurting himself, but his mad pitching made it seem entirely an accidental fall. In the screams of laughter, the last line could scarcely be heard, but when Hal said, "And Jill came tumbling after," Patty poised on the top step, leaning over so ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... what was almost impossible within the limited time remaining, he determined that, with all his labor, Dr. Arten should never charge him with suicidal tendencies again. Therefore he trained himself mentally and morally for his struggle as the athlete trains himself physically. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... the shed and started almost before the keeper had finished his orders. Eric, who was no mean athlete, was glad of every ounce of strength he possessed before he had gone a hundred yards. The cart, fully loaded, weighed 1120 pounds and there were seven men to drag it, a fairly good load on decent ground. But the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... orator; for his critics were able to allege that, whilst his written style was powerful, his spoken style was contemptible. Painters have represented him as a kind of demi-god, with the stature of an athlete and the grace of an Apollo. But he seems to have been diminutive in stature; and there appears to be evidence to prove that there was that in his appearance which, at first sight, rather repelled than attracted an audience. He felt these defects keenly, and ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker

... his face, but his brown beard is always neatly trimmed, for the young Commandant-General is particular in regard to his personal appearance in a manly way, though in no respect foppish. He is now, and always has been, an excellent athlete, a good rifle shot, and a first-class horseman; not given at any time to indoor pastimes over much, though fond of a quiet game of whist. He was born in Natal, of Dutch parents, and married to Miss Emmett, a relative of Robert Emmett, the Irish Revolutionist. Young Botha was ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales



Words linked to "Athlete" :   jumper, second-stringer, hurdler, climber, James Cleveland Owens, lacrosse player, gymnast, athlete's foot, reserve, sportswoman, ball hawk, Jim Thorpe, swinger, skier, shot putter, hockey player, lifter, winger, basketeer, acrobat, Mildred Ella Didrikson, ballplayer, vaulter, Zaharias, olympian, hooker, basketball player, athletic, Babe Zaharias, sportsman, athlete's heart, footballer, James Francis Thorpe, Fosbury, amateur, sledder, professional, substitute, Jesse Owens, weightlifter, striker, sharpshooter, baseball player, jock, Richard D. Fosbury, Babe Didrikson, sport, cricketer, tennis player, cager, Mildred Ella Didrikson Zaharias, soccer player, skater, pole vaulter, pole jumper



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