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Chafe   Listen
verb
Chafe  v. i.  
1.
To rub; to come together so as to wear by rubbing; to wear by friction. "Made its great boughs chafe together." "The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores."
2.
To be worn by rubbing; as, a cable chafes.
3.
To have a feeling of vexation; to be vexed; to fret; to be irritated. "He will chafe at the doctor's marrying my daughter."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Chafe" Quotes from Famous Books



... to an extent that would not be tolerated in time of peace, because if absolute freedom were permitted information might be made public that would be helpful to the enemy, and propaganda started that would be dangerous to the public safety. But even in war time, the people of a democracy chafe under restrictions upon free speech and a free press, and it is often a delicate question to determine how far such restriction ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... Ohio Railroad: from Baltimore, in Maryland, to Wheeling and Parkersburg, on the Ohio;—crossing the lowlands to the Washington Junction, thence up the Patapsco, down the Monocacy, to the Potomac; up to Harper's Ferry, where the Potomac and the Shenandoah chafe the rocky base of the romantic little town perched high above; winding up the North Branch to Cumberland,—the terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and of the great national turnpike to the West, for which Wills' Creek opened so grand a gate at the narrows,—to Piedmont the foot and Altamont ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... alone. The government generously dispensed to the capitalists tariff protection and bounties in the form of profitable orders, but insisted on keeping industry under its thumb. And though they might chafe, still the capitalists never neglected to make the best of the situation. For instance, when the sugar producers found themselves running into a hole from cut-throat competition, they appealed to the Minister of Finances, who immediately created a government-enforced "trust" and assured them ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... of your wet clothes (drop them out of the window, and I will gather them up, and get them dry for you) chafe yourself with the towels you will find in the room, then wrap yourself in one of the sheets or rugs, and try ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... cried, 'Chafe not! it is an ill thing and a hideous! This nosegay, O Khipil, it is for thee to present to thy mistress. Truly she will receive thee well after its presentation! I will have it now sent in thy name, with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... time to think of any children now, even of a man's own fine breed, and the boat was beginning much to chafe upon the rope, and thirty or forty fine fellows were all waiting, loath to hurry Captain Robin (because of the many things he had dearly lost), yet straining upon their own hearts to stand still. And the captain could ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... Lord was with Joseph.' That is one of the eloquent 'buts' of Scripture. The prison is light when God is there, and chains do not chafe if He wraps His love round them. Many a prisoner for God since Joseph's time has had his experience repeated, and received tenderer tokens from Him in a dungeon than ever before. Paul the prisoner, John in Patmos, Bunyan in Bedford jail, George Fox in Lancaster Castle, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... children, let us away; Down and away below. Now my brothers call from the bay; Now the great winds shorewards blow; Now the salt tides seawards flow; Now the wild white horses play, Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. Children dear, let us ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... The wicked Cecropia who keeps Sidney's Pamela shut up, laughs heartily at her invocations: "To thinke," she says, "that those powers, if there be any such, above, are moved either by the eloquence of our prayers, or in a chafe at the folly of our actions, carries as much reason, as if flies should thinke that men take great care which of them hums sweetest, and which of them flies nimblest." Pamela, "whose cheeks were dyed in the beautifullest ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... will greatly benefit by the Improvement Scheme fathered by Mr. Chamberlain. In the meantime the citizens—at least, those who bestow much thought upon such matters—shake their heads at the load of debt Birmingham bears upon its shoulders, and chafe at the high rates. It is, however, pointed out to the malcontents that they live in a healthier place than Birmingham used to be, and, further, that the city, owing to its improved character and appearance, attracts more visitors, and ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... av these other islands wouldn't furnish us a change of diet? If we could find pataties an' grapes, it ud be a blessin' to body an' sowl. Surely it ud be a good deed to bring all this archypilago into the thrue faith. Couldn't the chafe, now, take an army out in his doubled-barrelled canoes, an' commince the work av convarsion? Tell him if he'll do that same, I'll grant him all the indulgences he can ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... surprise. Cape Town and Durban must have been for these Canadian lads a new world only previously envisaged by them, in the big all-red map that hangs on the walls of Canadian schools, A little difficult at first, apt to chafe at the restrictions that, though perhaps not necessary for themselves in particular, were yet essential in preserving discipline in the whole mixed unit, rather inclined to resent certain phases of soldier life. But soon they settled ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey

... sounds of torment meet, Dire clap of hands, distracted chafe of feet; While loud and dull ascends the weeping cry, Surely in other thoughts ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... of the race mind, the process being now under way. Are not the signs of mental unrest and discomfort becoming more and more apparent as the days go by? The pain is growing greater, and the race is beginning to fret and chafe, and moan. It knows not what it wants, but it knows that it feels pain and wants something to relieve that pain. The old things are beginning to totter and fall, and ideas rendered sacred by years of observance are being brushed aside with a startling display of irreverence. Under ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... existed in a condition of preternatural sensitiveness. Among ladies pretending to dignity of life, the horror of acrid complaints alternating with public offers of love from a gross woman, may be pictured in the mind's eye. The absence of Mr. Pole and Wilfrid, which caused Mrs. Chump to chafe at the restraint imposed by the presence of males to whom she might not speak endearingly, and deprived the ladies of proper counsel, and what good may be at times in masculine authority, led to one fierce battle, wherein the great shot was fired on both sides. Mrs. Chump was requested ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... rolls on, as does the river, though its wave no longer flows in placid beauty, nor reveals the hidden things beneath. The ripples are now whirling eddies, and a hundred angry currents chafe along the rocks, as thought and feeling fret against the world, and waste their strength in vain repining or impatient irritation. Tranquillity returns no more; and though the waters seem not turbid, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... fell in a faint; and, inclining her neck over the Count's shoulder, laid upon his breast her swan's breast. The Count, infuriated though he was, checked himself in his mad career, and began to revive her and chafe her. ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... "would you begin already to chafe and rebel if I were to ask you not to send that telegram? It would be so much nicer to tell her after she ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... manie delaies contriued, speciallie by the chancellour, obteined his pall, being consecrated by the archbishop of Towrs, by virtue of his buls obteined from pope Celestine. The chancellour aduertised herof, and vnderstanding that he meant to come shortlie into England to be installed, was in a great chafe, bicause that during the time of the vacation, he had vsed the reuenues of that see at his pleasure, and therefore now to forego them he was nothing contented. [Sidenote: Matth. Paris.] Herevpon he wrote ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (6 of 12) - Richard the First • Raphael Holinshed

... From the margin of the river Took a long reed for a pipe-stem, With its dark green leaves upon it; Filled the pipe with bark of willow; With the bark of the red willow; Breathed upon the neighboring forest, Made its great boughs chafe together, Till in flame they burst and kindled; And erect upon the mountains, Gitche Manito, the mighty, Smoked the calumet, the Peace-Pipe, As a signal to ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... an ear; It boots ye naught to chafe or fleer, As overgrown with pride: Ye needs must hear Dan Guerin tell What once a certain priest befell, ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock

... he saw that by neither meane he could doo good, in a great chafe he brake foorth of the house vpon Kineard, and went verie neere to haue killed him: but being compassed about with multitude of enimies, whilest he stood at defense, thinking it a dishonour for [Sidenote: Kinewulfe slaine by conspirators.] him to flee, he was beaten downe and slaine, togither ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed

... unconsciously lulled by the cool drip of myriad leaves, and with his mind poised midway between emotion and thought. To yield to emotion would have been to chafe against the bands that knitted his life and hers to every life about them. To yield to thought would have been to think of her as no more to be drawn from these surrounding ties than some animate rainbow-fringed flower of the sea can ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable

... with vexation. There was no appeal, however. Miss Frazer escorted them into their bedroom, and stood over them, giving directions, until each pair of stockings or pocket-handkerchief was disposed according to her ideas of neatness. They might chafe and fret inwardly at the delay, but outwardly they were obliged to behave with ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... of mind, in spite of her bewilderment at these sudden occurrences. She at once laid the girl on the sofa, removed her dripping bonnet and cloak, and poured a few drops of brandy between her lips, while she set the squire to work, to chafe her hands. Aggie soon opened her eyes, ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... on the ledge," returned the voice of Wychecombe, from below; "I wish you would look to the signal-halyards, and see they do not chafe against the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the season when those who have the misfortune to be confined to indoor tasks chafe most in the leash—a beautiful May day of blue sky and sunshine and balmy air that called insistently to open places of green grass and the luxury of idleness and vagrant dreaming. Young Jimmy Stiles felt the call and he skipped along ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... the novelty of British rule, of the law and order and security for life and property which it had established, had gradually worn away, those who had never experienced the evils from which it had freed India should begin to chafe under the restraints which it imposed. What is disheartening and alarming are the lengths to which this reaction has been carried. For among the younger generation of Hindus there has unquestionably grown up a deep-seated and bitter hostility not only to British rule and to British methods of ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... murmur left my lips upon a later occasion—looking at me sorrowfully as she spoke, and with something incomprehensible to me in her expression that affected me strangely: "Wait until you are of age, Miriam: all can be arranged definitely then; but now, the waves might as well chafe against the rocks that bind them in their bed, as you against your condition;" adding with a tragic look and tone, half playful, of course, "Votre sort, c'est moi. You remember what Louis XIV. said, 'L'Etat, c'est moi;' now be pacified, I implore you—all will still be well," and she ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... past them, singing as it went, the sunshine sparkling on its bright clear waters, and glittering on the pebbles beneath them. Now the stream would chafe and foam against some larger impediment to its course; now it would dash down some rocky height, and form a beautiful cascade; then it would hurry on for some time with little interruption, till stayed by a projecting bank it would form a small deep basin, where, beneath the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... hands. Don't hold them near the fire yet," he said, and began to gently chafe the poor blue fingers, for he knew the danger of too sudden heat. "That is better—they will soon get warm. And now we ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... however, she was in the full blaze of her glory; she had been suspected, it is true, of equivocal conduct; but suspicion, while it is still suspicion and not proof, marks a woman out with the kind of distinction which slander gives to a man. Nonentities are never slandered; they chafe because they are left in peace. This woman was, in fact, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, a daughter of the d'Uxelles; her father-in-law was still alive; she was not to be the Princesse de Cadignan ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... these men become lamas; do they do it willingly or under compulsion? Apparently the matter is decided for them by their parents, who send them when boys to some lamassery where they are duly and meagrely trained; but they do not seem to chafe at their condition when they grow up, for the advantages are very real. The parents save in not having to buy wives for their sons, while the lama himself is always sure of support if he goes back to his lamassery, and he is free from ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... weakly plied, Shall bear me through the liquid sky; A two-form'd bard, no more to bide Within the range of envy's eye 'Mid haunts of men. I, all ungraced By gentle blood, I, whom you call Your friend, Maecenas, shall not taste Of death, nor chafe in Lethe's thrall. E'en now a rougher skin expands Along my legs: above I change To a white bird; and o'er my hands And shoulders grows a plumage strange: Fleeter than Icarus, see me float O'er Bosporus, singing as I go, And o'er Gastulian sands remote, And Hyperborean ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... dower of brotherly love; But you, O May-Day Medusa, whose glance makes the heart turn cold, Art a bitter Goddess to follow, a terrible Queen to behold. We are sick of spouting—the words burn deep and chafe: we are fain, To rest a little from clap-trap, and probe the wild promise of gain. For new gods we know not of are acclaimed by all babbledom's breath, And they promise us love-inspired life—by the red ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various

... sure enough, in about twenty minutes, I'm blessed if he hadn't worked those lashings so loose that I presently managed to slip my hands clear of 'em altogether. The moment that I was free I set to work to chafe my fingers and get the life back into them,—for they had lashed me so tight that I had lost all feeling in my hands,—and as soon as I was able to tell once more that I'd got a complete set of fingers, I whipped a ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... reply. He saw her desperation, and perceived that any remonstrance would be worse than useless. To keep such a resolute and determined spirit chained here in a sick-chamber would be impossible. She would chafe at the confinement so fiercely that a renewal of the fever would be inevitable. She would have to be allowed her own way. Most deeply did he commiserate this devoted wife, and much did he wonder how it had happened that her husband had gone off from her thus, at a time when ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... me; I strove to talk, And stammer'd foolishness; my walk Was like a drunkard's; if she took My arm, it stiffen'd, ached, and shook: A likely wooer! Blame her not; Nor ever say, dear Mother, aught Against that perfectness which is My strength, as once it was my bliss. And do not chafe at social rules. Leave that to charlatans and fools. Clay grafts and clods conceive the rose, So base still fathers best. Life owes Itself to bread; enough thereof And easy days condition love; And, kindly train'd, love's roses thrive, No more pale, scentless ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore

... so sublimely bad, 185 It is not Poetry, but prose run mad: All these, my modest Satire bade translate, And own'd that nine such Poets made a Tate. How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe! And swear, not ADDISON himself ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... about not getting away. They went down to the stables and interviewed Washington Bones and several of the other drivers present, and all agreed that it would not be possible to get very far beyond the town limits. This news made the young folks chafe considerably, but there was nothing to be done; so for another day they had to content themselves as best they could. During that time the boys did their best to send some message to Crumville, but without success, for all of the telephone and telegraph wires were still ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer

... Absurd, that I should have mistaken this place for the old town of Boston! It is a much finer city than the town of Boston. It has been built long since Boston. I fancy Boston must lie at a distance from this city, as the good woman seems ignorant of it." At these words his horse began to chafe, and strike the pavement with his fore feet; the stranger seemed a little bewildered, and said "No home to-night," and, giving the reins to his horse, passed up the street, and I saw no more ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... himself, Joe and the girl were bending over him. Joe was tearing at the buttons of his shirt. The girl was rocking backward and forward. All but overcome with excitement, she was still attempting to chafe his right hand. When she saw him open his eyes she uttered a little cry, then toppled over in ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell

... he left his prayer, and 'Brother,' he said, 'Take to thee corn, and oil, and bread, A bird has alit—half frozen, half dead— Upon our southern strand. Then warm him and feed him with gentle care, And chafe his wing's and anoint him there, He comes from my own loved land— From my own loved land,' and the old Saint wept; But the Monk arose, while the others slept, And warmed the heron, and fed and kept The bird for a day and night. So Columb feeling, though far away, ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger

... His terrible headache made him chafe at any prolonging of the scene. Moreover, it made rational thought difficult, twisting common-sense into fanciful shapes. It seemed to him an unendurable thing that he should protect himself under the wing of such a man as Stanhope; and the thought of ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... of each watch, when we came below, we took off our clothes and wrung them out; two taking hold of a pair of trowsers,—one at each end,—and jackets in the same way. Stockings, mittens, and all, were wrung out also and then hung up to drain and chafe dry against the bulk-heads. Then, feeling of all our clothes, we picked out those which were the least wet, and put them on, so as to be ready for a call, and turned-in, covered ourselves up with blankets, and slept until three knocks on the scuttle and the dismal sound of "All ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... forego the security of a fortress, for the uncertain enjoyment of those comforts and necessaries, and the doubtful gratification of this attachment. Accustomed as they had been "free to come and free to go," they could not brook the restraint under which they were placed; and rather than chafe and pine in unwilling confinement, would put themselves at hazard, that they might revel at large and wanton in the wilderness. Deriving their sustenance chiefly from the woods, the strong arm of necessity led many to tempt the perils which environed ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... away, she grew worse and needed the tenderest care and attention. But winter drew on, and with it came cold and hunger; the sick girl lay in an unheated room on a straw bed, wrapped in her husband's coat, the husband and mother trying to chafe a little warmth into her hands and feet. Some kind-hearted women relieved the distress in a measure, but on January 30, 1847, Virginia died. The effect on Poe was terrible. It is easy to see how a very artist of death, who could study the dreadful ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... turned to the pass, and as it started to snow in stinging gusts (and I was so obviously one of the "sheep"), I began to chafe at the delay. ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... formal stipulations which fetter its primacy of influence and control on the American continent and in American seas; and the concessions of principle over-eagerly made in 1850, in order to gain compensating advantages which our weakness could not extort otherwise, must needs cause us to chafe now, when we are potentially, though, it must be confessed sorrowfully, not actually, stronger by double than we were then. The interest of Great Britain still lies, as it then lay, in the maintenance of ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan

... meeting There, in endless sunshine free! And the airs on those hills greeting, How reviving must they be! But me checks yon raving river That betwixt doth chafe and roll; And its dark waves rising ever Strike a ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald

... its bed between high banks, and for some three miles—from Hollywood cemetery down to "Rockett's" landing—the shallow current dashes over its rocky bed with the force and chafe of a mountain torrent; now swirling, churned into foamy rapids, again gliding swiftly smooth around larger patches of islands that dot its surface. On the right hand hills, behind us, rises the suburb village of Manchester, already of considerable importance as a milling town; ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... shivered miserably throughout the night. Now and again I fitfully slept, but the pain of the cold always aroused me. How Maud could stand it was beyond me. I was too tired to thrash my arms about and warm myself, but I found strength time and again to chafe her hands and feet to restore the circulation. And still she pleaded with me not to cast off the masts. About three in the morning she was caught by a cold cramp, and after I had rubbed her out of that she became quite ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... General Taylor's feelings were during this suspense I do not know; but for myself, a young second-lieutenant who had never heard a hostile gun before, I felt sorry that I had enlisted. A great many men, when they smell battle afar off, chafe to get into the fray. When they say so themselves they generally fail to convince their hearers that they are as anxious as they would like to make believe, and as they approach danger they become more subdued. This rule is not universal, ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... him and with no reason for hating him, and with such training and experience as may best fit them for the task of weighing his enemy's charges and his own excuses and explanations. His course before such a tribunal, too, should be marked by ardor rather than by prudence. He should chafe under delay, clamor for investigation, and invite scrutiny, and put away from him all advisers whose experience is likely to incline them to chicane or make them satisfied with a technical victory. Such men are always dangerous in delicate cases. He should not wait for his accuser to get in all ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... the impressment of the promuschleniki into a service that deprived him of their legitimate work. Moreover, although he loved Rezanov personally, he had enjoyed supreme power in the wilderness too long not to chafe under even the temporary assumption of authority by his high-handed superior. With the best of intentions Davidov could make little headway against the passive resistance of the Chief-Manager, and those intentions would ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... Verronax chafe at each hindrance. He would have dashed onwards with feverish head-long speed, using his own fleet limbs when he could not obtain a horse, but AEmilius feared to trust him alone, lest, coming too late to rescue Lucius, ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of the day fret you, and begin to wear upon you, and you chafe under the friction,—be calm. Stop, rest for a moment, and let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let these irritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessing your inferiority to them, by permitting them to dominate ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan

... this way; and though Sir Roger Scatcherd was at present a great and rich man, Dr Fillgrave had remembered him a very small and a very poor man. He now began to think of Sir Roger as the stone-mason, and to chafe somewhat more violently at being so ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... courage and imperturbable good-nature of a born gentleman. It is when men are starving, when the plating of romance is worn off by the chafe of severe and continued suffering,—it is then that "blood tells." Winthrop had evidently that keen relish for rough life which the gently nurtured and highly cultivated man has oftener than his rude neighbor, partly because, in his case, contrast ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... He began to chafe at his imprisonment, and still more at his helplessness even were he at liberty to do anything. Christmas was still a fortnight off, and till then what could he do on thirteen shillings a week? He might cut down his commissariat certainly, to, say, ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... made with the delicacy of one who knew the situation. Hardy's good offices did not stop here. Having tried the bed himself for upwards of three long years, he knew all the hard places, and was resolved while he stayed up that they should never chafe another occupant as they had him. So he set himself to provide stuffing, and took the lad about with him, and cast a skirt of his newly-acquired mantle of respectability over him, and put him in the way of making himself as comfortable as circumstances ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... chafe and curse, Themselves and others change from bad to worse; While christian souls for blessings past can praise, And mend their ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... the swamp was reached, and the buggy began to leap from log to log of the corduroy, Black began to chafe in impatience of the rein which commanded caution. Indeed, the passage of the swamp was always more or less of an adventure, the result of which no one could foretell, and it took all Mrs. Murray's steadiness of nerve to repress an exclamation ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... she said. "I mind me—thou hast saved me from that horror-haunted place!" And she threw her arms about my neck, drew me to her and kissed me. "Come, love," she said, "let us be going! I am sore athirst, and—ah! so very weary! The gems, too, chafe my breast! Never was wealth so hardly won! Come, let us be going from the shadow of this ghostly spot! See the faint lights glancing from the wings of Dawn. How beautiful they are, and how sweet to behold! Never, in those Halls of Eternal Night, did I think to look upon the ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... time extremely cold, and when the divers got into the boats, they seemed greatly benumbed; and it is usual with them after this exercise, if they are near enough their wigwams, to run to the fire, to which presenting one side, they rub and chafe it for some time; then turning the other, use it in the same manner till the circulation of the blood is restored. This practice, if it has no worse effect, must occasion their being more susceptible of the impressions of cold than if they waited the gradual advances of their natural warmth ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... Things be entered into. An ignoble errand, Honora thought; and she sat very still, with flushed cheeks, in the corner of the carriage. Chiltern's finer feelings came to her rescue. He, too, resented this senseless demand of civilization as an indignity to their Olympian loves. And he was a man to chafe at all restraints. But at last the odious thing was over, grim and implacable Law satisfied after he had compelled them to stand in line for an interminable period before his grill, and mingle with those whom he chose, in his ignorance, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Stukely to start forward and gaze earnestly into the face of the speaker; then, to Dick's stupefaction, Stukely replied in apparently the same tongue, bent over and rapidly loosed the thongs which bound the old fellow's hands and feet together, and proceeded gently to chafe the shrunken limbs. ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... him. It would have been a woful match for both. In a certain sense he would be like the ambitious mouse that espoused the lioness. The polished and selfish idler, with a career devoted to elegant nothings, would fret and chafe such a nature as hers into almost frenzy, had ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... to chafe his paly lips With twenty thousand kisses and to drain Upon his face an ocean of salt tears, To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk And with my ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... bade his home good-bye and set out to return to the field of his labors, he was conscious that henceforth he was to have his father's family on his hands as pensioners; but he did not allow himself to chafe at the thought, for he reasoned that his father had dealt by him with a free hand and a loving one all his life, and now that hard fortune had broken his spirit it ought to be a pleasure, not a pain, to work for him. The younger children were born and ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... said Agathemer. "He calls to her or he walks in front of her. At once she turns her attention to him, appears to forget her prey altogether, rubs against him, purrs, lets him chafe her ears, head and neck, seems to beg for more chafing, rolls on the ground by him and invites him to play with her. Sometimes she seems to insist on his playing with her and to threaten to lose her temper unless he does play ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... officials; and others were enabled to smuggle their goods in under various pretences, and by various devices; while the traders who were without such corrupt influence or knowledge found this river commerce hazardous in the extreme. It was small wonder that the Kentuckians should chafe under such arbitrary and unequal restraints, and should threaten to break through them by force. [Footnote: ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... round the square untiringly. White dresses and black eyes and raven tresses—the olive-complexioned beauties of the Mexican uplands take their fill of passing joy. The moment is sweet, peaceful, even romantic; let us dally a moment, nor chafe our cold northern blood for more energetic scenes. Do we ask bright glances? Here are such. Shall we refuse to be their recipient? And moonlight, palms, and music, and evening breeze, and convent tolling bell, and happy crowd—no, it is not a scene from some dream of opera, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... the men to begin to chafe under the constant strain of moving through treacherous and unfamiliar territory. And the first signs of chafing made themselves ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... old heart of oak, Though round thee roar and chafe All storms of life, thy helmsman Shall make the haven safe! Then with Honour at the head, and Faith, And Peace along the wake, Law blazon'd fair on Freedom's flag, Thy stately voyage take:— While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless Thee ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... was no thought of the sort in the honest head of my companion. He believed he was serving, helping, and protecting me. And what could I do but hold my peace, and chafe, and take my chance ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... ye to my words, chafe not nor moan: Ye are not worsted nor disgraced; behold, With balanced vote the cause had issue fair, Nor in the end did aught dishonour thee. But thus the will of Zeus shone clearly forth, And his own prophet-god avouched ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... reason chafe, There came a voice without reply: 'T is man's perdition to be safe When for the truth ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer

... that I would rather think of her and suffer because of her than not to think of her at all. In all this memorable and unhappy period, my boy was the solace of my soul. I gave myself to the care of him lovingly, and as nearly as I can recollect I did not chafe against the narrow limits of my ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... mean place. Even the orchard over the hill brought him no comfort now. Blossom would not care for orchards. She would be ashamed of her stupid old father and the barren farm. She would hate White Sands, and chafe at the dull existence, and look down on everything that went to make up his ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... so closely bind, Scarce can the Tweed his passage find, Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil, Till all his eddying ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang

... the Lombard plain. Others are yearling calves, intractable and ignorant of labour. In order to subdue them to the yoke, it is requisite to take them very early from their native glades, or else they chafe and pine away with weariness. Then there is a sullen canal, which flows through the forest from the marshes to the sea; it is alive with frogs and newts and snakes. You may see these serpents basking on the surface among ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... been quite completed. The parts we are not to use have been quite atrophied, and have even dropped off; but in others, and we are not less to be pitied, they have been weakened and left. We wear the bandages, but our limbs have not grown to them; we know that we are compressed, and chafe against them. ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... and heartache because of thee. But I was glad to see thee bear the wallet of poor Fidelis—and O, 'twas foolish in thee to grieve for him, for he being gone, thy Helen doth remain—unless, forsooth, thou had rather I came to thee bedight again in steel—that did so chafe me, Beltane—indeed, my tender skin did suffer much on ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... chance to graze, when he improved the occasion to show off one of his eccentricities. Falconer had a way, as I have before stated, of packing all his scientific, cooking, and other instruments upon his horse, and on the occasion to which I have alluded, some one of them chanced to chafe or gall the pony, inducing him to give a kick up with his hinder limbs. The rattling of the pots and pans started him off immediately, and the faster he ran the more they rattled. We immediately secured our horses by catching ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... wishes solitude is safe, Whether he bathe at morning in the stream: Or lead his love there when the hot hours chafe The meadows, busy with a blurring steam; Or watch, as fades the light, The gibbous moon grow bright, Until her magic rays dance in a dream, ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various

... apart; the mountain gray May call no comrade to his lonely side; The giant ocean, wrapped in storm and spray, Has no companion for her endless tide; The forest monarch, where his parents died, Can find no brother in his lofty sway, And mighty rivers chafe their margins wide Where infant rills ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller

... dressed as he was, into his bunk. Evening was closing in, and for awhile he lay blinking at the swinging lamp, and wondering what the end of that search would be. The Selache was a little fore and aft schooner of some ninety-odd tons, wholly unprotected against ice-chafe or nip, and he knew that prudence dictated their driving her south under every rag of canvas now. There was, however, the possibility of finding some sheltered inlet where she could lie out the winter, frozen in, and he had, at least, blind confidence ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... to be always in company with these, with earth, and sun, and sea, and stars by night. The pettiness of house-life—chairs and tables—and the pettiness of observances, the petty necessity of useless labour, useless because productive of nothing, chafe me the year through. I want to be always in company with the sun, and sea, and earth. These, and the stars by night, are my natural companions.My heart looks back and sympathises with all the joy and life of ancient time. With the circling dance burned in still attitude on the ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies

... the marches and halts by the movements of the cloud. When it was taken up, they journeyed; when it settled down, they encamped. As long as it lay spread above the Tabernacle, there they stayed. Impatient eyes might look, and impatient spirits chafe—no matter. The camp might be pitched in a desolate place, away from wells and palm-trees, away from shade, among fiery serpents, and open to fierce foes—no matter. As long as the pillar was motionless, no man stirred. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... Nathan, his countenance losing much of the equanimity that had begun to cover it, and assuming a darker and disturbed expression, "thee doth confuse both theeself and me with many questions. Do thee be content for awhile, till I chafe thee poor legs, which is like the legs of a dead man, and tie up thee wounds. When thee can stand up and walk, thee shall know all I have to tell thee, both good and bad. It is enough ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... I profess the poor man is in great torment; he lies as flat—Dear, you should heat a trencher, or a napkin.—Where's Deborah? Let her clap some warm thing to his stomach, or chafe it with a warm hand rather than fail. What book's this? [Sees the ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... irritant: to others soap acts in the same way. You must know before starting—your mother can tell you if you don't know yourself—how oil, glycerine, salve, and soap will affect your skin. Remember, the main thing is to keep the feet clean and lubricated. Wet feet chafe and blister ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould

... before we could reach the first limits of civilization. That is what this man did. When he was still on his litter he used to toss and turn, and abuse the bearers and porters and myself because we moved so slowly. When we stopped for the night he would chafe and fret at the delay; and when the morning came he was the first to wake, if he slept at all, and eager to push on. When at last he was able to walk, he worked himself into a fever again, and it was only when Royce warned him that he would ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... he can't move her, Doctor," he repeated, as if he were reading my thoughts, as I truly believe that he was. For our minds in the North are not crusted like tender feet with horny coverings from the chafe of boots, or as are minds beset with telephones, special deliveries, and editions of the ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... The next night he brought forward his Chancery Reform measure in a speech of three hours, which, however luminous, was too long for their Lordships, and before the end of it the House had melted away to nothing. But, notwithstanding this success, he must inwardly chafe at being removed from his natural element and proper sphere of action, and he must burn with vexation at seeing Peel riot and revel in his unopposed power, like Hector when Achilles would not fight, though this Achilles can never ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... only a little numbed with the cold and pressure. There, I am better now. I'll chafe them before ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... cave of snows, we in our narrow girth Of need and sense, forever chafe and pine; Only in moods of some demonic birth Our souls take fire, our flashing wings untwine; Even like you, mad wind, above our broken prison, With streaming hair and maddened eyes ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman

... chafe, Baird, but look at his work. Look at Normandy, freed from misrule and exaction, in peace and order. Look at this land. Was ever king so loved? Or how durst he act as he ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... cognac," he said; "put a drop or two between her lips while I chafe her hands—so; see, she revives," as the white lids quivered for a second, and then the ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... a period of grave apprehension on the part of older men and women, of intense aggressiveness with the younger, who were eager for action. It is not surprising then that an educated, self-reliant, public-spirited woman who had just reached thirty should chafe against the narrow limits of a school-room and rebel at giving her time and strength to the teaching of children, when all her mind and heart were drawn toward the great issues then filling the press and the platform and even finding ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... the mechanism of government, creates a constant and intolerable friction, a gathering together of reluctant wills, a groaning under the consciousness of force, that make the movements of life fret and chafe incessantly? But where, in the presiding genius of a home, taste and sympathy unite (and in their genuine forms they cannot be separated)—the intelligent feeling for moral beauty, and the deep heart of domestic love,—with, what ease, what mastery, what graceful ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... took a chair at the fire and proceeded to chafe his hands. "Paris, did you say? Coldish ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... taking care of you. Doctor, what drops do you favour? You have them there; if you please, I'll offer them: I've administered them before." She spoke to the doctor very courteously; perhaps remarking that he was young and somewhat agitated. "Mayn't I chafe Mistress Fiddy's hands, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... something in store for him, and Zashue did not care to start without his brother. And when all that was finished the old man was not ready; and so they are waiting and waiting, and autumn is here in all its beauty, and Hayoue and Zashue, Zashue as well as Hayoue, begin to chafe; but it is of no ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... Made now; with no return but food; No mate to love, nor little brood To feed and save; No cool and leafy haunts; the cruel wires Chafe thy young life and ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... suddenly. To the question in her eyes his glance gave no answer, and for the moment a feeling of despair overcame her. Had she given him up only to the end that his life should be miserable; had she forced him into a marriage whose bonds would gall and chafe him with more deadly and festering wounds as ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates

... on the part of Fate in providing her with Henry for a brother, Francesca could well set the plaguy malice of the destiny that had given her Comus for a son. The boy was one of those untameable young lords of misrule that frolic and chafe themselves through nursery and preparatory and public-school days with the utmost allowance of storm and dust and dislocation and the least possible amount of collar-work, and come somehow with a laugh through a ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... back we look on bygane years, Weel may the cheek be wet wi' tears, The cauld mool mony a bosom bears, Ance dear to you and me; Yet I will neither chafe nor chide, While ane comes to my ingle side, Whose bosom glows wi' honest pride At, How 's a' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... the thongs, but they were too stout either to loosen or to break. I wormed my way out on to the river-bank and tried to chafe them against a rock, but only succeeded in bruising my flesh. The sun came out and shone down upon me till my thirst grew agonising. It seemed to me that at last I had run to the end of my tether. Then a thought occurred to me; wriggling toward the fire, I found that it still smouldered. By pushing ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... say on. Eteoclus is third— To him it fell, what time the third lot sprang O'er the inverted helmet's brazen rim, To dash his stormers on Neistae gate. He wheels his mares, who at their frontlets chafe And yearn to charge upon the gates amain. They snort the breath of pride, and, filled therewith, Their nozzles whistle with barbaric sound. High too and haughty is his shield's device— An armed man who climbs, ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... sometimes dissatisfied with the cardinal, whether from the apprehension I felt lest he should hinder me from going to the siege of Perpignan, or induce me to leave it, for fear lest my health might suffer, or from any other like reason, the said Sieur de Cinq-Mars left nothing undone to chafe me against my said cousin, which I put up with so long as his evil offices were confined within the bounds of moderation. But when he went so far as to suggest to me that the cardinal must be got rid of, and offered to carry it out himself, I conceived a horror of his evil thoughts, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... digged for him by Nadan. But seeing this sight the monarch was agitated and consterned and raged with mighty great wrath. Then quoth Nadan, "Seest thou, O King, what this sorry fellow hath done? But chafe not, neither be thou sorrowful, but rather do thou retire to thy palace, whither I will presently bring to thee Haykar pinioned and bearing chains; and I will readily and without trouble fend off from thee thy foe." So when Sankharib hied him home in ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton



Words linked to "Chafe" :   get to, irritation, rawness, nark, antagonize, fray, provoke, temper, rub off, exasperation, get under one's skin, anger, bother, devil, chevy, soreness, get, rag, annoy, ire, displeasure, rile, scratch, experience, nettle, hassle, peeve, rankle, grate, get at, chevvy, eat into, chivvy, plague, excoriate, frustration, touch, rub, meet, tenderness, warm, harassment, rub down, vexation, displease, gravel, aggravation, fret, choler, harass, pique, molest, abrade, annoyance



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