Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Captive   Listen
verb
Captive  v. t.  (past & past part. captived; pres. part. captiving)  To take prisoner; to capture. "Their inhabitans slaughtered and captived."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Captive" Quotes from Famous Books



... All these elements in folklore, magic and belief would endure, in the peasant class, under the veneer of civilisation. Now and again these elements of superstition would break through the veneer, would come to the surface among the educated classes, and would 'carry silly women captive,' and silly men. They, too, though born in the educated class, ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... levels in the past horde after horde of savage horsemen rode over Europe and Asia,—the frightful Huns, the devastating Turks, the desolating Mongols. It is with the last that we are here concerned, for Russia fell beneath their arms, and was held for two centuries as a captive realm. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... and as for these two girls—well, I am even more in love than you are, Philip. The elder is the handsomer, perhaps; she is very handsome; but your favourite is my favourite. Lois is lovely. There is a strange, fresh, simple, undefinable charm about the girl that makes one her captive. Even me, a woman. She wins upon me daily with her sweet unconscious ways. But nevertheless I am uneasy when I remember what I am here for, and what you are expecting. I fear I am acting the part of an innocent swindler, ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... affirm that intelligence absolutely ends where insensibility begins? Who can say that the passions fade away and die exactly at the last beat of the heart which they have agitated? Cannot the soul sometimes remain a voluntary captive within the corpse already dressed for the coffin, and note for a moment from the recesses of its fleshly prison house, regrets and tears? Those who depart have so many reasons to ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... the troop halted their weary horses in a wood, and lighting fires, cooked their food, and then lay down until morning. Sir Phillip exchanged but few words with his captive; as, having removed his helm, he sat by the fire, Walter had an opportunity of seeing his countenance. It did not belie his reputation. His face had a heavy and brutal expression which was not decreased by the fashion ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... that gobbling and talk sense?" shouted the irate skipper, with maddening disregard of the captive's predicament. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... appearance the charms of all the rest vanished like stars before the morning sun; that the King cleaved to her with the strongest affection, and was not seen out of the Seraglio, where she was kept, for about a month. That she was taken captive, together with her mother, out of a vineyard, on the Coast of Circassia, by a Corsair of Hiram King of Tyre, and brought to Jerusalem. It is said, she was placed in the ninth Seraglio, to the east of Palmyra, which, in the Hebrew tongue, is called Tadmor; ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... in the more solemn parts," are AEschylean. Again, with regard to the supernatural, there was the stimulus of the conversation of the Shelleys and of Lewis, brimful of magic and ghost-lore; and lastly, there was the glamour of Christabel, "the wild and original" poem which had taken Byron captive, and was often in his thoughts and on his lips. It was no wonder that the fuel kindled and burst into ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... after this effort at consolation he came face to face with Miss Higglesby-Browne. I suppose in the stress of surprising and capturing the camp he had not been struck with her peculiarities. Just now, between the indignity of her captive state and the insubordination of Aunt Jane, Miss Browne's aspect was considerably grimmer than usual. Slinker favored her with a stare, followed by ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... they had combined to comb and perfume her and to lace her stomacher before setting about their own clothing. White-haired and with a wrinkled face, she appeared, under her rich clothes, like some will-less and pallid captive that had been gorgeously bedizened to grace a conqueror's triumph. She was cousin to the late Queen Anne Boleyn, and the terror of her own escape, when the Queen and so many of her house had been swept away, seemed still to remain in the drawing-in ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... appointed time. Meanwhile it happened that a fierce Wyandotte chief named Le Loup, with a band of marauding Indians from the British camp, drove in a scouting party of Americans, and stopping on their return from the pursuit at Mrs. McNeil's house, took her and Jane captive, with the intention of taking them to the British camp. On their way back Le Loup and his followers encountered Duluth and his party. The half-breed stated his errand, and demanded that Jane be given up to him. Le Loup insisted on escorting her. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... jagged Mountains' lilac crest Once lay the captive bird's small rifled nest. There was my brother slain, my sister bound; His blood, her tears, drunk ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.

... her closer by simply lowering her still captive hands. Then he suddenly kissed her coldly startled lips, and instantly released her. She ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... in to see and revile and abuse him several times during the afternoon; but he had been able to wring no word of remonstrance or murmur of pain from the lips of the giant captive. ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... course, and isn't so red in the face. But she is hostile too. No viperess shall tread on the school system if she can help it! She keeps her lieutenants hustling, and now and then she looks over the crowd of captive men on the enemy's side and issues a command. Then some woman talks to her husband, and he gets red and mad and wags his arms. But in the end he goes over and talks to a man on the other side. And then that conversation spreads like a prairie fire, and ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch

... at last; I knowed the horse would do it," said Cooper, as the stern captive spum'd his weary load, and asked the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... strongly resisted this proposal; declaring, that he never would consent to acknowledge as sovereign a Prince not in France, and a captive as regent. "Besides," added he, "by what right does the Prince of Cannino come to speak within these walls? ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... down he dash'd upon a rock, And with her other burden self-destroy'd The hapless mother plung'd: and when the pride Of all-presuming Troy fell from its height, By fortune overwhelm'd, and the old king With his realm perish'd, then did Hecuba, A wretch forlorn and captive, when she saw Polyxena first slaughter'd, and her son, Her Polydorus, on the wild sea-beach Next met the mourner's view, then reft of sense Did she run barking even as a dog; Such mighty power had ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... though it were reeds. One glance, as he flew by the watchers without seeing them, caused them to hold their sides and double up with laughter. The line was still fastened to Chris' leg, and drew after it the captive of his hook. One glance behind and Chris began to holler, "Help, help, Massa Walt, help, Massa Charley. De snake's goin' to get dis ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... person whom the prince saw in the land of the giants was a lovely captive princess. The opening which the beetle had made in the wall led directly to the dungeon ...
— Tales of Giants from Brazil • Elsie Spicer Eells

... Farman and Latham went out and up in great circles, Farman cleaving his way upward in what at the time counted for a huge machine, on circles of about a mile diameter. His first round took him level with the top of the stands, and, in his second, he circled the captive balloon anchored in the middle of the grounds. After another circle, he came down on a long glide, when Latham's lean Antoinette monoplane went up in circles more graceful than those of Farman. 'Swiftly it rose and swept round close to the balloon, veered round ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... condition, from which we see him in the very act of passing, by the melting of his nature and the yielding of his will. Surely there have been few decisions in the world's history big with larger destinies than that which the captive described to Agrippa in the simple words: 'I became not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... Bane, relaxing his grasp with a feeling of self-reproach, for he had a strong suspicion that his captive really was Salamander. "I do believe I've killed him. Wow! Shames, man, lend a hand to carry him to the fire, and plow up a bit flame that we may ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... emerged, a seedling, while Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem. No man knows how old his predecessors were when finally they sank into death—mighty fall! But John Muir counted four thousand rings in the trunk of one fallen giant, who must have lived while Pharaoh still held captive ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... the renforcement taken to him by Captain Gallinato, and the success that he had; consequently, that kingdom has always been well affected toward the Spaniards. The king of Sian is like him of Champa; he holds more than fourteen thousand Christians captive, from various nations. In the year 629, that king captured two ships from Manila in his ports, and detained them. Therefore the governor, Don Juan Nio, sent two galleons, which inflicted a sufficient punishment ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... not made with hands. You have been in the milder caverns of Trophonius; or as in some den, where that fiercest and savagest of all wild creatures, the TONGUE, that unruly member, has strangely lain tied up and captive. You have bathed with stillness.—O when the spirit is sore fretted, even tired to sickness of the janglings, and nonsense-noises of the world, what a balm and a solace it is, to go and seat yourself, for a quiet half hour, upon ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... people for some fish, a turtle, and coco-nuts, paying for them in tobacco and knives, and promising them a keg of rum if twenty turtle and a boat-load of full-grown coco-nuts were brought them within a few days. Turtle, however, were scarce, but Kaibuka said that there were a good many captive ones in the turtle ponds at the main village, and he would send over for some. And then his brain began to work. He suggested that two or three of the white men should go with his messenger; but they were too wary, and made excuses, which Kaibuka took in seeming good part, saying ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke

... running of many feet approaching us from the direction of the plaza. To be captured now would mean death; yet I could not attempt to leave the village without first ascertaining the whereabouts of Ajor and releasing her if she were held a captive. That I could escape the village I was not at all sure; but of one thing I was positive; that it would do neither Ajor nor myself any service to remain where I was and be captured; so with Nobs, ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... siege and destruction of Jerusalem. It should be trodden down of the Gentiles. The people should be carried away captive and sold into all lands. They should be scattered from one end of the earth to the other. All nations should despise them. They should become a by-word, a hissing and a scorn. They should be hunted, hounded and persecuted. Their sufferings should be unparalleled, horrible, ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman

... unjust tyranny that the poor afflicted Israelites sustained during the time of their captivity. True it is, that the prophet was gathered to his fathers in peace, before this came upon the people: for a hundred years after his decease the people were not led away captive; yet he, foreseeing the assurance of the calamity, did before-hand indite and dictate unto them the complaint, which afterward they should make. But at the first sight it appears, that the complaint ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox

... a lonely knight, eating a marvelously good dinner in enforced solitude, with a beautiful lady imprisoned in the upper rooms of the castle. In the rare old days I could go up and knock the jailers' heads together, break in the door, and bear the captive damsel away on my charger. But in this unromantic age I can't even send in ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous

... my breast," he said, To one, a stranger, lingering near the spot, "And force the gurgling stream back on my heart, "To quench the life within me. Quick! They come!" The stranger did the cruel bidding. (j) Hark! "The King!" the foemen cry, and fiercely rusht Upon the Royal captive, who, till then, Had lain by them unseen. But while the shout Swept like a storm along the swelling ranks The soul of Saul went drifting through the dark, Like some fair ship with sails and cordage rent, Out from the stormy trials of his life, To tempt ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... steeps himself intimately in the subject, till he feels that the Alien Personality is beginning to live in him. It may be months before this happens; but it comes at last. Another Being fills him; for the time his soul is captive to it, and when he begins to express himself in words, he is freed, as it were, from an evil dream, the while he is ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald

... members; and also in stating that there is another law,—that of the mind,—which has a tendency towards good. In the unregenerate we understand him to teach that the law of evil is the stronger, and holds the man, the personal will, captive. In the regenerate, the reverse is the case. Nor does Paul teach that this sinful tendency is guilt. It is not "O guilty man that I am!" but "O wretched man ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... sighed, as the frantic leapings seemed to cease and the prize lay gasping at full length, exhausted by the violence of the long battle. Presently Loring called the steward to send up for the Senorita's captive, and to serve it at the Senorita's table for breakfast, and then perhaps he might have returned to his solitary walk, but the study of Spanish is never more fascinating than when rosy lips and pearly teeth are framing ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... the dally prayers, and the prayers before a fight at sea, and his honest voice trembled, as, in the Prayer for all Conditions of Men (In spite of Amyas's despair), he added, "and especially for our dear brother Mr. Francis Leigh, perhaps captive among the idolaters;" and so ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... your greatness. But have you that strength? And if you should not succeed?—We know nothing of the world: all our thoughts of it come out of books and dreaming. You imagine yourself treading the boards and holding all hearts captive with your voice. So I used to imagine myself slaying dragons. So, only ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... happened that John Ward, the returned captive, and I finished the distance to Salem. Temptation assailed me as we reached the edge of the settlement. I had planned all the time to finish my business with Colonel Lewis at his home at Richfield. I had planned ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... along. Meantime the King, leaving Napoleon in the chateau to ruminate on the fickleness of fortune, drove off to see his own victorious soldiers, who greeted him with huzzas that rent the air, and must have added to the pangs of the captive Emperor. ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... ... hfton [ hftan]. Note that verbs of hearing and seeing, as in Mn.E., may be followed by the infinitive. They heard God's adversary sing (galan) ... hell's captive bewail (wnigean). Had the present participle been used, the effect would have been, as in Mn.E., to emphasize the agent (the subject of the infinitive) rather than the action ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith

... chair he lit his pipe, his ear on the alert to catch the slightest sound of the captive in the cask above. The warm air was laden with the scent of flowers, and nothing stirred with the exception of Mr. Tasker's shadow on the blind of the kitchen window. The clock in the neighbouring church ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... his chair where he sat, straining his ears to catch the faintest night sounds. He started violently at the report of a frost-riven tree, and the persistent rubbing of a branch against the edge of the roof set his nerves a-jangle. And so it was that while the captive slept, the captor worried and fretted the ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... Hugo marry over and over again. He would have made it all so beautiful. He could throw a Splendour over—over almost anything." Mr. Brumley sank out of attention altogether. It was so difficult to express his sense of Lady Harman as a captive, enclosed but unsubdued. She had been as open and shining as a celandine flower in the sunshine on that first invasion, but on the second it had been like overcast weather and her starry petals had been shut and still. She hadn't ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... civilised days, 'ballads' by courtesy or convention, are set beside the rugged and hard-featured aborigines of the tribe, just as the delicate bust of Clytie in the British Museum has for next neighbour the rude and bold 'Unknown Barbarian Captive.' To contrast by such enforced juxtaposition a ballad of the golden world with a ballad by Mr. Kipling is unfair to either, each being excellent in its way; and the collocation of Edward or Lord Randal with a ballad of Rossetti's is only of interest ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick

... on each of which I touch as belonging to the true notion of a Christian life—the conquered captive; that captive partaking in the triumph of his Conqueror; and the conquered captive led as a trophy and a witness to the Conqueror's power. These three things, I think, explain the Apostle's thoughts here. Let ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... not have missed my mark a second time!" Transported with rage not unmixed with terror, Gessler exclaimed, "Tell! I have promised thee life, but thou shalt pass it in a dungeon." Accordingly, he took boat with his captive, intending to transport him across the lake to Kussnacht in Schwytz, in defiance of the common right of the district, which provided that its natives should not be kept in confinement beyond its borders. A sudden storm on the lake overtook the party; and Gessler was obliged to give ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various

... dozing at the schooner's helm, did not see the two creeping men who so suddenly were upon him. A twisted scarf over his mouth, and no sound to warn his mates, his hands and feet bound with the very cords that had secured his prisoners, he was left a captive. Then John Nelson and Captain Starkweather sped toward the forecastle; the open hatchway was closed so quickly that the men below hardly realized what had happened, and it was securely fastened before ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis

... Every man in our day, according to the measure of his sensibility, and with some respect also to his position, is mobbed by impressions, and must fight as for his life, if he escape being taken utterly captive by them. It is our perpetual peril that our lives shall become so sentient as no longer to be reflective or artistic,—so beset and infested by the immediate as to lose all amplitude, all perspective, and to become mere puppets of the present, mere Chinese pictures, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... protecting the oppressor, but in wearing a constitutional crown, in holding the sword of justice with the hand of mercy, in being the first citizen of a country whose air is too pure for slavery to breathe, and on whose shores, if the captive's foot but touch, his fetters of themselves fall off. (Cheers.) To the resistless progress of this great principle I look with a confidence which nothing can shake; it makes all improvement certain—it makes all change safe which it produces; ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... throw[832] their mind off its balance. So they record of Lysimachus that he was so overcome by thirst that he surrendered himself and his forces to the Getae for some drink, but after he had drunk and bethought him that he was now a captive, he said, "Alas! How guilty am I for so brief a gratification to lose so great a kingdom!" And yet it is very difficult to resist a necessity of nature. But when a man, either for the love of money, or for political ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... Euripides, where the unhappy wife of Jason distracted by jealousy at the desertion and second marriage of her husband, destroys her own children in the fury of her vengeance against him; or the Hecuba of the same author, where the discrowned and captive widow of Priam, doomed in one day to see her daughter sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles, and the dead body of her son washed ashore by the waves, takes a terrible vengeance on his murderer, by putting his children to death, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... his Christian captives, and have felt that he deserved a better fate. He coldly inquired "of what use such a present could be to him," and then ordered it to be thrown into the sea. Far from being obeyed, it is said the head was stuck on a pike and raised aloft on board the captive galley. At the same time the banner of the Crescent was pulled down, while that of the Cross run up in its place proclaimed the downfall ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... I greatly fear me that some of those who were taken with Hu may be in grave peril of those dangers of which Dyer has spoken. But not Hubert. Hubert was an officer, and it is very rare for even Spaniards to treat captive officers with anything short of courtesy. I fear that our dear lad may have to endure a long term of perhaps rigorous imprisonment; he may be condemned to solitary confinement, and be obliged to put up with coarse food; but they will scarcely dare to torture ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... Elves of Darkness, so says the old Iroquois grandmother, were wise and mysterious. They dwelt under the earth, where were deep forests and broad plains. There they kept captive all the evil things that wished to injure human beings,—the venomous reptiles, the wicked spiders, and the fearful monsters. Sometimes one of these evil creatures escaped and rushed upward to the bright, pure air, and spread its poisonous breath over the living things of the upper-world. ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... Tuolos were selected, and the chief invited to enter the wagon. John went to the large hut, and released the Krishnos. They were unbound, and directed to follow the marching column, surprised at being free from the captive bonds. They could not understand such treatment, and this was heightened when John ordered the aged Krishno, who walked with difficulty, to take a place ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay

... in Holland. She was one year younger than Charles. James, the third child, whose title was now Duke of York, was about ten. He had been left in Oxford when that city was surrendered, and had been taken captive there by the Republican army. The general in command sent him to London a prisoner. It was hard for such a child to be a captive, but then there was one solace in his lot. By being sent to London he rejoined his little ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... copperhead bite in which satisfactory clinical data were obtainable, are given by Prentiss Willson. Of the victims, five were young children, one was a fourteen-year-old boy, one a chronic drunkard, and one a leper who submitted to the stroke of a captive rattlesnake in the mad hope that it would cure his affliction. It did—in twenty-four hours. Of the remaining five, three were dosed with alcohol in large quantities. In several of the cases, notably ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... retreat, occupied herself with her son Georges, and strengthening herself by the memory of Chrestien, also by constantly visiting Madame d'Espard, she succeeded, without completely foregoing society, in making captive the celebrated deputy of the Right, a man of wealth and maturity, Daniel Arthez himself. In her own home and in that of Felicite des Touches she heard, between 1832 and 1835, anecdotes of Marsay. The Princess de Cadignan had portraits of her numerous lovers. She ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... The captive officer followed the captain aft to the door of the cabin. On a bale of cotton he saw the cutlasses and revolvers which had been taken from him and his men, which had apparently been thrown in a heap where they happened to hit, ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic

... very much interested in the captive fish. He went down to the edge of the creek to watch them as they tried to swim away. But they could not, for ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Meadow Brook • Laura Lee Hope

... whirling, and cold gray mists drove, blinding the windows and chilling us where we sat within. From time to time the storm lifted and showed again this vision of nature hoary as if with immemorial eld; if at times we seemed to have run away from it again it closed in upon us and held us captive in its desolation. ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... entered the town, leading the captive Algonquins, fast bound, and surrounded by a crowd of men, women, and children, all singing at the top of their throats. The largest lodge was ready to receive them; and as they entered, the victims read their doom in the fires that ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... both living with him and attending on him wherever he went. One named Ba-rang-a-roo, who was of the tribe of Cam-mer-ray (Bennillong himself was a Wahn-gal), lived with him at the time he was seized and brought a captive to the settlemerit with Cole-be; and before her death he had brought off from Botany Bay, by the violence before described, Go-roo-bar-roo-bool-lo, the daughter of an old man named Met-ty, a native of that district; and she continued with him until his departure for ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... the plump but old and doomed Terrible Billy confidingly came to water at eleven o'clock at night. He took his last drink, and was led a captive to the camp, where he was tied up all night. The old creature looked remarkably well, and when tied up close to the smoke-house—innocent, unsuspecting creature of what the craft and subtilty of the devil or man might work ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... door, and beheld Quilt kneeling over Thames, who'se hands and feet were bound with cords, and about to plunge his sword into his breast. A blow from the iron bar instantly stretched the ruffian on the floor. Jack then proceeded to liberate the captive from his bondage. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... leads to Mirfach, the brightest star of Perseus, Who saved the captive Andromeda, daughter of Cepheus, "the Monarch," ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low

... matter; animal life, to even the profound apprehension of the fallen angel, is an inconceivable idea. Meanwhile, as the scarce reckoned centuries roll by, vacantly and dull, like the cheerless days and nights over the head of some unhappy captive, the miserable prisoners of our planet become aware that there is a slow change taking place in the condition of their prison-house. Where a low, dark archipelago of islands raise their flat backs over the thermal waters, the heat ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... passing that way for several hours to come. So, with aching back and knees, I made shift to limp along, bent almost double, and ended by sitting down for a couple of hours, and looking about me, in a country which would have seemed dreary enough, I suppose, to any one but a freshly-liberated captive, such as I was. At last I got up and limped on, stiffer than ever from my rest, when a gig drove past me towards Cambridge, drawn by a stout cob, and driven by a tall, fat, jolly-looking farmer, who stared at me as he passed, went on, looked back, slackened his pace, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... himself in the commanding position he had resolved upon, when the sound of voices became more distinct. The party had plainly arrived at the appointed place, and Wendot could hear them discussing who was best fitted for the task of traversing the dangerous ledge to bring back the captive who was to be found there. The wild Welsh was unintelligible to Gertrude, or she would have known at once what dark treachery had been planned and carried out by her trusted companions; but Wendot's cheek glowed with shame, and he ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green

... and adhering to Robin Oig as her husband, rather than incur the disgrace, of appearing in such a cause in an open court. It was, indeed, a delicate experiment; but their kinsman Glengyle, chief of their immediate family, was of a temper averse to lawless proceedings;* and the captive's friends having had recourse to his advice, they feared that he would withdraw his protection if they refused to place the prisoner ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... that the man would be able to speak English, in which case his task would be comparatively easy. But when he asked the captive in German whether he could speak English, the latter replied with ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall

... set down for the remembrance and perpetuation of that most important event in the history of the Jewish people when the Angel of Death swept over all of Egypt's land smiting the first-born child of every house of the natives, high and low, but sparing all the houses of the captive Hebrews who marked their door-sills with the sacrificial blood as a token of their faith. This is no place to give the explanation of this apparently miraculous event, which students now know to be due to natural causes. We merely mention it ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka

... your experience even as time silently touches those old pictures into a more persuasive and pathetic beauty, and as this increasing summer sheds ever softer lustre upon the landscape. You will return conquerors and not conquered. You will bring Europe, even as Aurelian brought Zenobia captive, to deck your homeward triumph. I do not wonder that these clouds break away, I do not wonder that the sun presses out and floods all the air, and land, and water, with light that graces with happy ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis

... the earliest times to the present, is full of instances of woman's noble achievements. East, west, north, south, wherever we wander, we tread the soil which has been wearily trodden by her feet as a pioneer, moistened by her tears as a captive, or by her blood as a martyr in the cause of ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... shadow of fear of any trouble occurring. The one thing I am afraid of is that the king will keep Coligny near him, so that if war should break out again, we shall not have him for our general. With the Queen of Navarre dead, the Admiral a prisoner here, and De la Noue a captive in the hands of Alva, we should fight under terrible disadvantages; especially as La Rochelle, La Charite, and Montauban have received royal governors, in accordance with ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... were written in lines of pain about the eyes and mouths of poor old spinsters such as Balzac met hiding their misery in backstairs flats of Paris tenements—they came blinking out into the fierce sunlight of the Paris streets like captive creatures let loose by an earthquake—and of young students who had eschewed delight and lived laborious days for knowledge and art which had been overthrown by war's brutality. All classes and types of life in Paris were ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... into the Prisoners Body yet alive. Thus they light them, which burn like so many Torches; and in this manner, they make him dance round a great Fire, every one buffeting and deriding him, till he expires, when every one strives to get a Bone or some Relick of this unfortunate Captive. One of the young Fellows, that has been at the Wars, and has had the Fortune to take a Captive, returns the proudest Creature on Earth, and sets such a Value on himself, that he knows not how to contain himself in his Senses. The Iroquois, or Sinnagers, are the most ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... be easily deceived. How often they look with scorn upon their elders who are playing the hypocrite to eyes which are, for the most part, singularly critical! Having paid his respects to those present—he was known to all—Paul was led a willing captive into the chamber where Harry English and a brother professional, an eccentric comedian, who apparently never uttered a line which he had not learned out of a play-book, were examining with genuine enthusiasm certain cases of ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... the Grand Canal they came out into the great Canal of San Marco, the beginning of the lagoon. Here Kitty forgot for the moment her troubles; her dream-Venice had returned. There were private yachts, Adriatic liners, all brilliant with illumination, and hundreds of gondolas, bobbing, bobbing, like captive leviathans, bunched round the gaily-lanterned barges of the serenaders. There was only one flaw to this perfect dream: the shrill whistle of the ferry-boats. They had no place here, and ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... Comptesse, who has heretofore played the game so brilliantly, you have grown singularly unobservant. I am not a crusader, liberating captive Christian knights. I am France's servant, playing a somewhat guileful game which is as ancient as Ulysses, and subject ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... restoration by postliminium; for on escape from captivity a man recovers all his former rights, and among them the right of paternal power over his children, the law of postliminium resting on a fiction that the captive has never been absent from the state. But if he dies in captivity the son is reckoned to have been independent from the moment of his father's capture. So too, if a son or a grandson is captured by the enemy, the power of his ascendant is provisionally suspended, though he may again be subjected ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... to run, and he superintended with the greatest care the construction of his balloon. It was of enormous size, with a cage slung underneath the brazier for heating the air. Befors making his free ascent De Rozier made a trial ascent with the balloon held captive by a long rope. ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... Of Fulness, sucking all God's glory in! (Ah, Mistress mine, To nothing I have added only sin, And yet would shine!) Ora pro me! Life's cradle and death's tomb! To lie within whose womb, There, with divine self-will infatuate, Love-captive to the thing He did create, Thy God did not abhor, No more Than Man, in Youth's high spousal-tide, Abhors at last to touch The strange lips of his long-procrastinating Bride; Nay, not the least imagined part as much! Ora pro me! My Lady, ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore

... to be seen, with his white tie working round toward the back of his neck, and a rose in his button-hole, looking like a rather unwilling captive in the hands of Mrs. Gladstone, who moved through the social crush with that queenlike dignity of bearing which had distinguished her ever since the days when she and her sister, Lady Lyttelton, were "the beautiful Miss Glynnes." Robert Lowe, not yet Lord Sherbrooke, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... It is the heat and narrowness of the cage That makes the captive testy; with free wing The world were all one Araby. Leave me now, Will ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... many of them for a season are devoted to earthly slavery, {98} through the cruel avarice of man, yet, blessed be God, some amongst them are, through divine grace, called to the glorious liberty of the children of God; and so are redeemed from the slavery of him who takes so many captive at his will. It is a happy thought, that "Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God. Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth. Oh, sing ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond

... Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo, were exposed to the rapacious cruelty of the Huns. Milan and Pavia submitted, without resistance, to the loss of their wealth;" and "applauded the unusual clemency which preserved from the flames the public as well as private buildings, and spared the lives of the captive multitude." "Attila spread his ravages over the rich plains of modern Lombardy; which are divided by the Po, and bounded by the Alps and Apennines." He took possession of the royal palace of Milan. "It is a saying worthy of the ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... It is probable that, at an early period, Homer and Herodotus furnished some hints to the Latin Minstrels; but it was not till after the war with Pyrrhus that the poetry of Rome began to put off its old Ausonian character. The transformation was soon consummated. The conquered, says Horace, led captive the conquerors. It was precisely at the time at which the Roman people rose to unrivalled political ascendency that they stooped to pass under the intellectual yoke. It was precisely at the time at which the sceptre departed from Greece that the empire of ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... stroke of policy. But the Queen! What urgent reasons of state could Danton, Collot d'Herbois, and Robespierre allege against her? What savage greatness did they discover in stirring up a whole nation to avenge their quarrel on a woman? What remained of her former power? She was a captive, a widow, trembling for her children! In those judges, who at once outraged modesty and nature; in that people whose vilest scoffs pursued her to the scaffold, who could have recognised the generous people of France? ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... for him, no sweetness of nature, no green pastures and still waters, within or without, while he seeks life's adjustments through definitions of mere right and rights. No, boy; you will ever be a restless captive, pacing round and round those limits of your enclosure. Worse still if you seek those definitions only to justify your overriding another's happiness in pursuit of your own." The boy was not in hearing; ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... Almagro was like to die. "Heaven forbid," he exclaimed, "that this should come to pass before he falls into my hands!" *16 Yet the gods seemed now disposed to grant but half of this pious prayer, since his captive seemed about to escape him just as he had come into his power. To console the unfortunate chief, Hernando paid him a visit in his prison, and cheered him with the assurance that he only waited ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... captured by the Iroquois and carried to the Mohawk Valley—In League with Another Captive, he slays their Guards and escapes—He is overtaken in Sight of Home—Tortured and adopted in the Tribe, he visits Orange, where the Dutch offer to ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... Mr. F. Buckland remarks in regard to trout, that "it is a curious fact that the males preponderate very largely in number over the females. It INVARIABLY happens that when the first rush of fish is made to the net, there will be at least seven or eight males to one female found captive. I cannot quite account for this; either the males are more numerous than the females, or the latter seek safety by concealment rather than flight." He then adds, that by carefully searching the banks sufficient females for obtaining ova can be found. (72. 'Land ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... Hale once wrote, "Starr King was an orator, whom no one could silence and no one could answer." Says another, "There was argument in his very voice. It thrilled and throbbed through an audience like an organ carrying conviction captive before its wonderful melody." If it is true that William Pitt once ruled the British Nation by his voice, as good authority affirms, if it is ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds

... greater humorist, could be saved only in following a path that skirted madness, and 'as by fire.' To Bunyan, Walton would have seemed a figure like his own Ignorance; a pilgrim who never stuck in the Slough of Despond, nor met Apollyon in the Valley of the Shadow, nor was captive in Doubting Castle, nor stoned in Vanity Fair. And of Bunyan, Walton would have said that he was among those Nonconformists who 'might be sincere, well-meaning men, whose indiscreet zeal might be so like charity, as thereby to cover a multitude of errors.' To Walton there seemed spiritual ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang

... Miss Essie, controlling herself into some order, and poring over the little hand she had made captive. "I never saw a greater beauty of a ring—never. Do you know what it means, Faith?" She dropped her voice and ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... fugitive from Argos, hearing of the golden statue, determined to obtain it; and with that view, seized their minister, or, in the allegorical language of the poets, took their eye away from them. He then sent them word, that if they would give him the statue, he would deliver up his captive, and threatened, in case of refusal, to put him to death. Stheno and Euryale consented to this; but Medusa resisting, she was killed by Perseus. Upon his obtaining the statue, which was called the Gorgon, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... ours." declared Ned, as Tom was reading the newspaper account. "Still, I don't wish him any bad luck, and I do hope he doesn't become the captive of the red pygmies." ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton

... bachelor. To him, therefore, he one day said, "Take care, gossip mine, that you and your title do not meet with the Fathers of the Redemption, for they will certainly take possession of your doctorship as being a creature unrighteously detained captive." ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... who hath no particular calling, or vagrant Person under pretence of a calling, be suffered to perform worship in Families, to or for the same: Seeing persons tainted with errours or aiming at division, may be ready (after that manner) to creep into houses and lead captive ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... Minister, arrayed as an Aztec Princess. Master Schermerhorn, of New York, was beautifully dressed as an Albanian boy, and Ada Cutts, as a flower-girl, gave promise of the intelligence and beauty which in later years led captive the "Little Giant" of the West. The boys and girls of Henry A. Wise were present, the youngest in the arms of its mother, and every State in the Union ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... effect was largely due to the fine statues and decorative grouping of the arcaded streets. One monument was so imposing and so unique, that I forgot for a moment my anxiety to find the Boy and hear his news. The huge pile held me captive, staring up at a miniature Nelson column, supported on the backs of four colossal elephants sculptured in grey granite of true elephant-colour. These benevolent mammoths, not content with the duty of bearing a tower of stone with ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... changed being. She was no longer the heartsome lassie who had taken captive the stoical fancy of old Angus. Tutored by suffering, she had become a resolute woman. Goaded by something akin to despair, she was now more ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... dying husband, Margaret was also deeply concerned as to the fate of her captive brother, for whom she always evinced the warmest affection. Indeed, so close were the ties uniting Louise of Savoy and her two children that they were habitually called the "Trinity," as Clement Marot and Margaret have recorded in ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... quickened his insight amazingly. He divined that however much the girl might care for these wayside rambles with him, her youth must still crave youth, and in this strait he turned to Mrs. Van Dam, who forthwith became Milicent's captive, too, and a fairy godmother into the bargain. So Shelby came much to frequent a vine-screened upper veranda off Mrs. Van Dam's library, where she was fond of serving coffee after dinner, and one could dip down over the red roofs and tree-tops to the stripling Hudson changing its ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... steps and high, clear voices, they stormed the little house by the bridge and took its owners captive. ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... nor wake to sadness The heart that, sleeping, dreams of gladness; For sleep is death, without the pain— Then wake me not to life again. Oh, let me sleep! nor break the spell That soothes the captive in his cell; That bursts his chains, and sets him free, To revel in ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... you can have any idea," said Willoughby, severely, "of what captivity in Omdurman implies. If you had, however much you disliked the captive, you ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... arms, against his breast, within reach of his lips, the woman whom he loved and whom he has now conquered? By every rule of fate and logic, the adventure is being repeated all over again ... but this time in reality. Rose Andre is a captive. There is no hope of rescue. The forest is vast and lonely. That night, or on one of the following nights, Rose Andre must ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... than themselves. What would be the result? They would fight valiantly at first, like wasps. But what if they began to fail? Was not the wasp-king angry with them? Had not he deserted them? He must be appeased; he must have his revenge. They would take a captive, and offer him to the wasps. So did a North American tribe, in their need, some forty years ago; when, because their maize-crops failed, they roasted alive a captive girl, cut her to pieces, and sowed her with their corn. I would not tell the ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley

... could turn he had caught her and flung her backwards over his arm. With his other hand simultaneously he dealt Hill a blow in the back that sent him blundering down into the darkness, and then, with lightning rapidity, he banged the door upon his captive. The lock sprang with the impact, but he was not content with this. Still holding her, he dragged at a rough handle above his head and by main strength forced down an iron shutter over ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... when they learned that the famous Marco Polo was a prisoner, flocked to his cell to see and converse with him. Yielding to their solicitations, he sent to Venice for his notes of travel, and during the days of his captivity dictated an account of his experiences to a fellow-captive, one Rusticiano, ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober

... victims at the stake merely for pleasure is not incorrect. He frequently did so, as he does so to-day, but in the seventeenth century this act often is part of a religious ceremony. He probably would have burned his captive, anyway, but he gladly utilized his pleasure as a means of propitiating his gods. In India it ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... glorious Lord of Life! that, on this day, Didst make thy triumph over death and sin, And having harrowed hell, didst bring away Captivity thence captive, us to win: This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin; And grant that we, for whom thou diddest die, Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin, May live for ever in felicity! And that thy love we weighing worthily, ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... to me, Alric, son of Haldor," said Hauskuld, seating himself beside his captive: "King Harald is not the tyrant you take him for; he is a good king, and anxious to do the best he can for Norway. Some mistaken men, like your father, compel him to take strong measures when he ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne

... again, but presently my fellow captive nudges me and says: "Listen!" From another cell comes the voice of a woman singing—the girl who is in for "inciting to resist, your worship," in fact. "Listen!" he says, "that woman could sing once." Her voice is low and sweet and plaintive, ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson

... fell on them, and made men hem them in and bear them down with shields, and so they were taken captive. ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... may seem the future ill and past, I see the flower-de-luce Alagna enter, And Christ in his own Vicar captive made. ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante

... marvelled exceedingly. He ordered that the wounds of the merchant should be dressed, and his own examined. On taking off his cuirass, his wound was found to be but slight; but his men were so exasperated at seeing his blood, that they would have put the captive robbers to instant death, had he not forbidden them to do ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... came, and in May 1824 we were joined by another captive. This was a treat for us, as he brought news from the outside world. He told us there had been many disturbances, that Bolivar was now undisputed ruler and leader of the Patriots, but that the end of the war seemed as far ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... broken; and the Czar, with every one left to him, of being made prisoner. The latter was in no condition to make even the least resistance. The Grand Vizier had only to will it, in order to execute it on the spot. In addition to the glory of leading captive to Constantinople the Czar, his Court, and his troops, there would have been his ransom, which must have cost not a little. But if he had been thus stripped of his riches, they would have been for the Sultan, and the Grand Vizier ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... warrior bowed his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire, And sued the haughty king to free his long-imprisoned sire: "I bring thee here my fortress keys, I bring my captive train, I pledge thee faith, my liege, my ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... and in numerous orders and proclamations denounced former treaties of peace with them, and directed that perpetual enmity and wars be maintained against them. A pretended peace was, however, authorized to be extended to the Indians in August 1628 until certain captive Englishmen were redeemed; then it was ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn

... not the first captive that had been shut up in this splendid prison; but you may easily comprehend, Felton, that the more superb the prison, the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... I still o'ercome! I brought a rival, not a captive, home; Yet I may be deceived; but 'tis too late To clear those doubts, my stay brings certain fate. [Aside. Come, prince, you shall to Mexico return, Where your sad armies do your absence mourn; And in one battle I will gain you more Than I have made you ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... idolatrous. It is believed that he caused the great evangelical prophet, Isaiah, to be put to death by being sawn asunder, and he set an image in the Temple itself. He soon brought down his punishment on his head, for the Assyrian captains invaded Judea, and took him captive, dragging him in chains to Babylon. There he repented, and humbled himself with so contrite a heart, that God had mercy on him, and caused his enemies to restore him to his throne; but the free days of Judah were over, and ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... household gods were thrown into the water, the houses were cleaned, and finally, all the fires were extinguished. As the last day of the cycle drew to a close, the priests formed a procession, and set out for a mountain about six miles from Mexico. There an altar was built. At midnight a captive, the bravest and finest of their prisoners, was laid on it. A piece of wood was laid on his breast, and on this fire was built by twirling a stick. As soon as fire was produced, the prisoner was killed as a sacrifice. The production of new fire was proof that the gods had ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... with the last words, but dropped it at a glance from Ristofalo, and began to pace the floor along his side of the room, looking with a heavy-browed smile back and forth from one fellow-captive to the other. He waited till the visitor was about to speak, and then interrupted, pointing ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... doctrine of rewards and doubteth the wisdom of Him that hath Light that surpasseth all knowledge of man, shall be made captive in Doubting Castle, and the three jewels of the faith shall ...
— Buddhist Psalms • Shinran Shonin

... door, and that the lure of the stolen food had drawn him back to his feast. He listened, and could catch just the faintest of sounds, which it was impossible to analyze. But above all else the anxious boy hoped that his captive might not think about burrowing under the log wall, at least not for ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie

... man, I think lots of you, and only want to end all this in a quiet home where we can sing 'John Anderson, my Jo' together. I check off place after place as the captive the days of his imprisonment. Only two more after to-night. Ever your ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe



Words linked to "Captive" :   wrapped, hostage, imprisoned, emotional person, creature, unfortunate, attentive, captivity, enwrapped, detainee, jailed, surety, POW, intent, brute, beast, confined, animate being, political detainee, animal, fauna



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com