Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Consuming   Listen
adjective
consuming  adj.  Taking up most of one's attention; ardent; as, politics is his consuming passion.
Synonyms: overwhelming.






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





"Consuming" Quotes from Famous Books



... mean uncertain—intervals we were bundled up and marched to the public baths. This was so great an undertaking, consuming half a day or so, and involving, in winter, such risk of catching cold, that it is no wonder the ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... which by their frequency compensate for this comparative innocence? shall I inflame the account by those general massacres which have devoured whole cities and nations; those wasting pestilences, those consuming famines, and all those furies that follow in the train of war? I have no need to exaggerate; and I have purposely avoided a parade of eloquence on this occasion. I should despise it upon any occasion; else in mentioning these slaughters, it is obvious how much the whole might be heightened, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... whole, I remember that I got into great confusion relating to my sins and repentances, and knew neither where to begin nor how to proceed, and often had great fears that I was wholly without Christ, and that I would find God a consuming fire to me. I could not help running into new sins continually; but then I was mercifully dealt with, for I was often made to repent of them most heartily, by reason of bodily chastisements received on ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... one moment—the strange tidings came which drove her from the stupor of resignation to fevers of anxiety more consuming than any she had ever felt before. A great flame, successive flames, of terror swept over her, as she feigned placid sleep in the little cabin, at the thought of the news poor Reckage would have to ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... deserts, his man or boy[10] is invariably able to produce from his wallet "ham, tongue, potted blackcock, and a pint of cyder," while in more favourable circumstances Buncle takes his ease in his inn by consuming "a pound of steak, a quart of green peas, two fine cuts of bread, a tankard of strong ale, and a pint of port" and singing cheerful love-ditties a few days after the death of an adored wife. He comes down the side of precipices ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... Dutchman, called Van Paris, accused of the heresy which has received the name of Arianism, was condemned to the same punishment. He suffered with so much satisfaction, that he hugged and caressed the fagots that were consuming him; a species of frenzy of which there is more than one instance among the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... forward by catching up on iron rakes burning wisps and transferring them to spots in the weedy plot that did not kindle readily. Little Ned, clinging to the hand of Maggie, who had joined the family in the garden, looked on with awe-struck eyes. From the bonfire and the consuming weeds great volumes of smoke poured up and floated away, the air was full of pungent odors, and the robins called vociferously back and forth through the garden, their alarmed and excited cries vying with the children's shouts. ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... years' imprisonment with hard labour,[765] and they fell ultimately to waste-paper value. A pair of boots worth thirty francs in gold cost 10,000 francs in paper. On paper all were immensely rich. Yet the masses were starving. Unfortunately people cannot live by consuming unlimited quantities of credit notes. They can become prosperous neither by robbing the rich nor by calling a shilling a sovereign, but only by producing more. Greater wealth means simply increased consumption, and increased consumption, unless based on increased production, ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... unicorn is the type of death, ever in eager pursuit to overtake the race of Adam. The pit is the world, full of all manner of ills and deadly snares. The tree, which was being continually fretted by the two mice, to which the man clung, is the course of every man's life, that spendeth and consuming itself hour by hour, day and night, and gradually draweth nigh its severance. The fourfold asps signify the structure of man's body upon four treacherous and unstable elements which, being disordered and disturbed, bring that body to destruction. ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... great hurry and would almost run past him; sometimes she would saunter along in the most unconventional way, glancing from time to time at a book or a paper; sometimes her eager face would look absolutely bewitching in its brightness; sometimes scarcely less bewitching in a consuming anxiety which seemed ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... you'd given this tea after next Saturday, Alderman,' said Jim. Charteris was called the Alderman on account of his figure, which was inclined to stoutness, and his general capacity for consuming food. ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... this long band of darkness where the gray road should be, in the dull shadow of the levee? Oh, God of mercy, it was the column! the whole of Kincaid's Battery, in the saddle and on the chests, waiting for the word to march! Ah, thou ladies' man! Thus to steal away! Is this your profound—abiding—consuming love? The whisper was only in her heart, but it had almost reached her lips, when she caught her breath, her whole form in a tremor. She clenched the window-frame, she clasped her ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." He would continue to press forward in pursuit of the intangible apparition, until he sank with exhaustion near some stream or fountain. Under the influence of the fever, which was consuming his brain, he would imagine the trickling water to be the song of a feminine voice. He would wind his arms around the young saplings, he would tear the berries from the bushes, pressing them against his thirsty lips, and imagining their odoriferous sweetness ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... earth," he thought, "enchanted princesses, mysterious Melusinas." He smiled somewhat distrustfully—as a matter of habit. But from this moment his frank, open, wooing attachment to the girl was transformed into a consuming passion. ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... accompaniment: both more than comfortably drunk. In the middle of the room assorted lawbreakers gathered round a table were playing fan-tan at the top of their lungs. At smaller tables men and women sat consuming poisons of which they were obviously in no crying need; while in bunks builded against one wall devotees of the pipe reclined in various stages of beatitude. The air was hot, and foul with cigarette smoke, sickening fumes of sizzling opium, effluvia ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... and they should have recollected, that hardly had that very year 623 departed, even yet the knell of its last hour was sounding upon the winds, when this effeminate empire had occasion to show that she could clothe herself with consuming terrors, as a belligerent both defensive and aggressive. In the absence of her great emperor, and of the main imperial forces, the golden capital herself, by her own resources, routed and persecuted into wrecks a Persian army that had come down upon her by stealth and a fraudulent ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... a consuming fleet, the other with a falling minister. The Dutch had just burned the English navy at Chatham; on the other hand, the reign of respectable bigotry was about to pass away with Clarendon. Far less reputable men were to succeed, but men whose laxity of principle at least ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... is entirely gratuitous—you will compel him to assume it. My sentiment as regards brotherly love is brief and terse, 'Let George do it!'" Mr. Horton was complacently consuming his breakfast with an excellent appetite, to which the prospect of six weeks among Bermuda lilies ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... sorrowful without hope, are greedy, selfish, and vexing; so, to use his own expression, he hates the sight of them, and resorts to his hovel, only because a hedge affords less shelter from the wind and rain. Compelled by parish law to support his family, which means to join them in consuming an allowance from the parish, he frequently conspires with his wife to get that allowance increased, or prevent its being diminished. This brings beggary, trickery, and quarrelling, and ends in settled craft. Though he have the inclination, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... for some moments, during which I could see nothing of what was going on, and I felt my eyes smart and my nostrils fill with the smoke and the stench. Gradually a tall flame, over twenty feet high, leaked out, consuming the body and showing me, as the atmosphere cleared, the Shokas down by the river washing their hands and faces to cleanse themselves of what they look upon as unclean, the contact with a corpse. Retracing their steps to the village, the women ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... running from the dying hero's couch to the front of the stage to sing his pathetic phrases with tremendous feeling into the faces of the audience. Niemann, reclining on the couch, immovable as a recumbent statue, as was his wont, without a gesture, all evidence of the seething impatience which is consuming him mirrored in the expression of his face, and particularly his eyes, watched the conventional stage antics of his colleague till he could endure them no longer. He gave a sign to Seidl, who stopped the orchestra ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... other very handsome, with frank open innocent features, very prepossessing. They are quick and intelligent, capable of deep affection and gratitude, showing remarkable industry and patience. A pygmy boy of eighteen worked with consuming zeal; time with him was too precious to waste in talk. His mind seemed ever concentrated on ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... Indians (impressed, no doubt) to build a fort for twenty guns. The site is in dispute, a Brazilian claiming it as private property. The white barracks of Tabatinga, the first fortress in Brazil, are in plain sight, the voyage consuming but twenty minutes. Between San Antonio and Tabatinga is a ravine, on either side of which is a white pole, marking the limits of the republic and ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... beard, you would know that I would never risk my life to save yours," and away he ran. The whole history of American politics is assurance, but pre-eminently so is the history of present parties, that a party victory would scarcely be risked to save all womankind from consuming fire. A very few such elections as the late one in Virginia, would subdue immensely the present Republican ardor on ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... as your majesty may see; but it is a victory that costs me dear; I have but a few minutes to live, and you will not have the satisfaction to make the match you intended; the fire has pierced me during the terrible combat, and I find it is gradually consuming me. This would not have happened, had I perceived the last of the pomegranate seeds, and swallowed it, as I did the others when I was changed into a cock: the genie had fled thither as to his last intrenchment, and upon that ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.

... the uncertain yellowness that descended from the roof. Boys ran up and down the length of the platform in the foggy gaslit darkness shouting Banbury cakes and newspapers. Elfrida hated Banbury cakes, but she had a consuming hunger and bought some. She also hated English newspapers, but lately some queer new notable Australian things had been appearing in the St. George's Gazette—Cardiff had sent them to her—and she selected this journal from the damp lot that hung, over the newsboy's arm, on ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... merely the effect of a stronger, more potent will imposed on his own. How strong that will was, he guessed from his own instantaneous obedience to Frank's suggestion of sleep. And armed with impenetrable commonsense he came down to breakfast. Frank had already begun, and was consuming a large plateful of porridge and milk with the ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... gratified, dies away into a feeble spark—but it can always be blown again into a flame. This year the chance came to the boy, now a graybeard, to see these places; and the spark flared up again, into a bright, consuming flame. ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... coffee, and consuming at least a barrel of rusks, we rose to go, in spite of Miss Thora's intimation that a fresh jorum of coffee was being brewed. The horses were resaddled; and with an eloquent exchange of bows, curtseys, and kindly smiles, we took leave of our ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... as I sat consuming with little appetite my solitary supper, there fell on me a sudden sense of loneliness. The desire that I had hitherto felt to be alone with my own miserable reflections gave place to a yearning for human companionship. That, indeed, ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... nature would seem better assimilated when incorporated in forms of belief and worship, public or private, even though these beliefs and forms have imperfections or inadequacies. We do not support material life by consuming pure carbon, or nitrogen, or hydrogen: we take these in such admixtures as our experience shows to be best for us. We do not live by breathing pure oxygen: we take it diluted with other gases, and mainly with one which, if ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... is thus clearly a duty devolving on all. It is alike the voice within and the voice from heaven. It cannot be neglected without imminent peril. It is a subject of vital interest. It must be deeply pondered. It must be earnestly prayed over. The great idea must enter, like a consuming fire, into the very heart's core, and inflaming it with zeal, bring forth fruit an ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark

... good number of these had, under the depressing influence of disappointment and failure in the past, neglected to sow extensively, not a few families were forced again to winter at Pembina, and draw their supplies from the chase to avoid consuming all the seed which alone ensured them against famine. Among these were the Swiss families, most of whom, being watch and clock makers, pastry-cooks, mechanics and musicians, were not well adapted for agricultural pursuits. Perhaps they were ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... fact that, in some of the most important articles, she has barely sufficient to supply her own wants; while the whole of her colonial possessions, east, west, north, and south, are at this moment supplied with—and, as regards the article of sugar, are consuming—foreign slave produce, brought direct, or, refined in bond, exported and sold in the colonies at a rate as cheap, if not really cheaper, than British muscovado, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... was unpleasing, and silenced Gillian. She hoped to extract the rest of the story in the course of the day. But before breakfast was over Valetta rushed in with her hat on, having scrambled into her clothes in a hurry, and consuming her breakfast in great haste, for she had no notion either of losing her place in the class, or of missing the discussion of the entertainment with Kitty, from whom she had been so ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Shakespeare alone have we a gallery of female portraits comparable in range and elaboration to what he has left us. He has painted them under almost all conditions which can elicit and develop the expression of natural character: under the infatuation of illicit and consuming passion at war with the better self, as in Phaedra; under the provocation of such wrongs and outrages as transform Medea into a tigress and Hecuba into a fiend; under all the appeals to their proper heroism, the spirit of self-sacrifice and self-abnegating ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various

... of Warwick had likewise forges in his woods at Lydney, as well as others in the Forest, and these formed no doubt but a small part of the whole number. The dimensions of these forges may be judged of by the two at Flaxley consuming more than two oaks weekly, to the destruction of much timber, in lieu of which the King gave the Abbey 872 acres of woodland, which still forms part of the property at the present day, under the ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... submission, the whole company, crowding the gorge below, or peering over from the surrounding cliffs, climbed for the purpose, stood for some time mute and appalled at the spectacle, and the thought of the fearful issue it involved. No sound or sight, however, except the crackling of the consuming fagots and the flaring sheet of the ascending flames, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... words can tell, Far greater these, than those which erst befel From the dire terror of thy consort, Jove; E'en stern Eurystheus' dire command above; This of thy daughter, OEneus, is the fruit, Beguiling me with her envenom'd suit, Whose close embrace doth on my entrails prey, Consuming life; my lungs forbid to play; The blood forsakes my veins, my manly heart Forgets to beat; enervated, each part Neglects its office, whilst my fatal doom Proceeds ignobly from the weaver's loom. The hand of foe ne'er hurt me, nor the fierce Giant issuing from his ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... moment. Through a few openings in these metallic flames we perceived a large sphere of a darker kind of metal nearly of a clouded copper colour, which they enclosed and seemingly raged around, as if hieroglyphically consuming it.... What did the ingenious builders mean by the globe surrounded by flames? Did they, by this, record any past calamity of their world, or predict any future one of ours?' (Why, by the way, should the past theory be assigned to the moon and the future one to our earth?) 'I ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... been in this slavery for a month now, and under his meek exterior he was slowly consuming to a cinder with the insults and humiliations which his master had put upon him. For the meek suffer bitterly from these hurts; more bitterly, perhaps, than do the manlier sort, who can burst out and ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain

... resistance, the French bid an eternal adieu to that fatal city. They carried with them four hundred wounded, and, on retiring, deposited, in a safe and secret place, a fire-work skilfully prepared, which a slow fire was already consuming; its progress was minutely calculated; so that it was known at what hour the fire would reach the immense heap of powder buried among the ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... unceremoniously as they are wont to deal with the elements. They need only to extend their clearings, and let in more sunlight, to seek out the southern slopes of the hills, from which they may look down on the civil plain or ocean, and temper their diet duly with the cereal fruits, consuming less wild meat and acorns, to become like the inhabitants of cities. A true politeness does not result from any hasty and artificial polishing, it is true, but grows naturally in characters of the right ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... the purchase and sale of commodities is necessary, so that the overproduction of the United States can be satisfactorily disposed of to foreign countries." Of course, this overproduction he mentions was the profits of the capitalist system over and beyond the consuming power of the capitalists. It was at this time that Senator Mark Hanna said: "The production of wealth in the United States is one-third larger annually than its consumption." Also a fellow-Senator, Chauncey Depew, said: "The American people produce annually ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... strong drinks, ceremony often required that they break bread (or its other world equivalent) on strange planets. And so science served expediency and now a Trader bound for any Galactic banquet was immunized, as far as was medically possible, against the evil consequences of consuming food not originally intended for Terran stomachs. One of the results being that Traders acquired a far flung reputation of possessing bird-like appetites—since it was always better to nibble and live, than to gorge ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... consuming vengeance seethed in her heart; the patience she was forced to practise, much against her will, petrified in time into a mien of ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... had here since the beginning of the year, and which, since the battle of Luetzen and the denunciation of the armistice, had increased to such a degree as to contain upwards of 20,000 sick and wounded, may be considered as a malignant cancer, that keeps eating farther and farther, and consuming the vital juices. It was these that introduced among us a dreadfully destructive nervous fever, which had increased the mortality of the inhabitants to near double its usual amount. Regarded in this point of ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)

... verbs and movements it is evident that, while still being concrete, they might be simple or complicated activities consuming little or much time, and further, might be movements of parts of the body merely, or movements employing other objects as well. In this experiment complicated activities were avoided even in the verb series. ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... a line from the "E" to the "W" on the dial. Crouching down upon the ground Jamie sighted, as before, to a distant tree, but as he did so be became suddenly aware that the light was fading. He had been much longer than he had realized, consuming a great deal of time in examining the signs around the big rock and in taking his distances ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... struck me in the manners and customs of Friedrichsruh were that the Chancellor invariably took a barrel of beer out driving, and stopped halfway in the afternoon and insisted on his guests consuming it out of a two-handled mug which appeared from under the coachman's seat. I had some talk with him about the wisdom of his going unprotected for great distances through the woods, and he answered, "But I am not ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... of the first nights of May. The first warm, spring-like night of the season, and the seats at the Concert des Ambassadeurs were crowded by the Parisians consuming their brandied cherries under the canopy of fluttering light green leaves of the opening limes. I sat, one of the audience, and heard the band clashing, and watched the dancers flit on and off the glittering diminutive stage, with indifferent eyes ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... heavy heart, as you may be sure, knowing that, whenever the black cur began to blarney him, there was no good to come in his way. He accordingly went into the stable, but consuming to the hand's turn he did, knowing it would be only useless; for, instead of clearing it out, he'd be ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... before I lost all power to hide it. I say days, because whoever has loved a woman, and has been much alone with her, yet always kept in check by her severity, must have found days like centuries. How full life seemed and yet how consuming! What languor and unrest! What tenderness and rage! It was as though the hours were years; and at this very day, if I did not bring in dates to rectify the error of my memory, I could easily persuade myself that these two ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... turning from pale to consuming crimson. There was a simple sincerity in Severn's words which was almost irresistible. For a moment he felt like shouting out a loud denial of his falsehood: "She is there! she's alone and in tears, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... holy and just God; for he is the judge of all, and his eyes are purer than to behold iniquity; yea, his very essence and presence is a consuming fire; yet, before and with this God, and that for such a people, Jesus Christ, the King, will be an Advocate. For one mean man to be an Advocate for the base, with one that is not considerable, is not so much; but for Christ to be an Advocate for the base, and for the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... The cold strengthened as the daylight waned. The very air seemed frozen and resolved into a cutting diamond-dust of frost. Suddenly Madelon awoke to the fear that she could not walk much farther. She had eaten nothing since morning; the cold and fatigue were consuming her life as the flame consumes the wick of the lamp ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... to which men have gone in the erection of cheese factories, has increased competition to an extent decidedly prejudicial to the interest of the cheese-consuming world. A., having invested his entire capital in the construction and equipment of a factory, will be quite likely, when B., C., and D. erect factories in his immediate neighborhood, to hold his peace when sundry varieties of swill milk are offered at his door, instead of speaking ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... requires him to appear before his subjects, he does so merely by hanging one foot out of a window. He trains dancing-girls himself, and has so many mistresses that he cannot always call them by their right names. It is not wonderful that this kind of life leads before long to a consuming disease; and as Agnivarna is even then unable to resist the pleasures of the senses, he dies. His queen is pregnant, and she mounts the throne as regent in behalf of her unborn son. With this strange scene, half ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... there was no good wire made in the United States. One house in England had the monopoly of making steel wire for pianos for more than a century. Young Washburn, however, had grit, and was bound to succeed. His wire became the standard everywhere. At one time he made 250,000 yards of iron wire daily, consuming twelve tons of metal, and requiring the services of seven hundred men. He amassed an immense fortune, of which he gave away a large part during his life, and bequeathed the balance ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... the 2nd of November that they are finally dismissed with an allowance of three sous per league mileage for those of the departments. Enough, however, remain in Paris to increase immeasurably the troop of drones which, accustomed to consuming the store of honey, think they have a right to be paid by the public for ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... clocks, glared out like those of John Rogers at the stake, enveloped in fire, the cries of the crowd were mingled in with a rude, wild chorus, in which the pedler was made to understand that he stood himself in a peril almost as great as his consuming chattels. It was the famous ballad of the regulators that he heard, and it smote his heart with a consciousness of his personal danger that made him shiver in his shoes. The uncouth doggrel, recited in a lilting sort of measure, the peculiar and various pleasures of a canter ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... eaten and the remaining sandwiches had been carefully stowed away in Wilfred's capacious pocket, they pressed forward with renewed energy on the part of all save Wilfred's horse. By dint of constant urging it was kept going faster than a walk though it was obsessed by a consuming desire to lie down. In order to keep Lahoma's mind from dwelling on their difficulties and on Brick's peril, the young man maintained conversation at high pressure, ably seconded by his companion who was anxious to show ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... achieved, as a dazzling performance abounding in the most surprising literary and rhetorical effects. But neither Sheridan nor Fox was capable of that sustained and overflowing indignation at outraged justice and oppressed humanity, that consuming moral fire, which burst forth again and again from the chief manager of the impeachment, with such scorching might as drove even the cool and intrepid Hastings beyond all self-control, and made him cry out with protests and exclamations ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... to what they henceforth called the River of the Strangers. When the tide went out they mounted the Unicorn and plundered her of all the water-soaked cargo. In the cargo were quantities of powder. A fire was kindled to dry the booty. At once a consuming flame shot into the air, followed by a terrific explosion; and when the smoke cleared neither plunder nor plunderers nor ship remained. Eighty years afterwards the fur traders dug from these river flats a sunken cannon stamped ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut

... does not imply that the action of the National Assembly on the night of the 4th of August was altogether admirable. The example of the nobles was infectious. A consuming fervour of self-sacrifice seized every member of the house. Archbishops, bishops and abbots rushed to the tribune and offered all they could. Tithes, pluralities, and every sort of ecclesiastical privilege were sacrificed. The unprivileged class attempted ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... then again she was in his arms. He told her about this trouble—he showed how the love of her was consuming him. Far into the night they sat talking, and he poured out his heart to her, he bore her with him to the mountain-tops of his desire. He took down a book of Spenser's, and read her the "Epithalamium"; he read her Shelley's "Epip sychidion," which they both loved. All the power of Thyrsis' genius ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... her. Why! he had been tired before he began, or so she felt. In one swift moment as of a drowning person, she saw again all the passages of their companionship, knew with certainty that it had never been a genuine flame. Shame ran, consuming, in her veins. She buried her face in the cushions. This girl had possessed his real heart all the time. With a laugh she thought: 'I put my money on the wrong horse; I ought to have backed Edward. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... defences, opened from La Basse to Arras and in Champagne. On the 25th the infantry attacked in high hopes and high spirits: for months, declared Joffre in his order of the day, we had been increasing our strength and our resources while the enemy had been consuming his, and the hour had come for victory. The striking force was Langle de Cary's Fourth Army, and the front of attack ran for fifteen miles from Auberive to Massiges. The bombardment had been effective and the lan of ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... were an enchanted prince and princess turned to stone by some wicked witch, envious of their happiness in the peaceful garden amid the green alleys and fragrant flowers. As I ate my luncheon I felt as if I were consuming what was their property, and pondered the supposition that some day the spell might be broken, and the stone-bound couple came down from those high pedestals, and go dancing and fiddling into the ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... homage. His coming was always a signal to arouse the mind. His mental vitality, which was very great, impressed even unsympathetic beholders with a sense of fiery thought struggling in its fetters of mortality and almost shattering and consuming the frail temple of its human life. His stately head, silvered with graying hair, his dark eyes deeply sunken and glowing with intense light, his thin visage pallid with study and pain, his form of grace and his voice of sonorous eloquence and solemn music (in compass, variety, and ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... ... illume With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead, Of her consuming cheek the autumnal ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... hours, for the sun of a new day was high in the heavens. I was lying in a little shelter of boughs at the foot of that mound on which we flew the flag that guided us back over the waters of the Lake Kirua. Near by was Hans consuming a gigantic meal of meat which he had cooked over a neighbouring fire. With him, to my delight, I saw Mavovo, his head bound up, though otherwise but little the worse. The stone, which probably would have killed a thin-skulled white man, had done no ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... sounding. Prohibition, these same people would tell us, should be enforced to save poor, weak humanity and civilization again, and we should fight to that end. Yet as long as the world has been moving, civilized man has been consuming a certain amount of alcohol, and has been in no serious danger of going down to disaster. We have progressed through the ages, despite our cheerful cups of wine; and though of course a few imbeciles have dropped from the line, the rest of us have been ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... that deathly inertia he drew himself, inch by inch, as out of some clinging swamp. His hand found strength to tighten upon hers. He opened his eyes, leaden-lidded as they were, and saw her face all white and drawn, gazing into his own with such an agony of love, such a consuming fire of worship, that it seemed as if his whole being were drawn ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... had stood on the writing-table four or five months—an object of consuming curiosity and speculation to the young woman who dusted Lynde's chambers—when an incident occurred which finally led to ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... mountains hewed. Her half-dead joints, and trembling limbs I saw, Like poplar leaves blown with a stormy flaw. Or slender ears, with gentle zephyr shaken, Or waters' tops with the warm south-wind taken. And down her cheeks, the trickling tears did flow, Like water gushing from consuming snow. Then first I did perceive I had offended; My blood the tears were that from her descended. 60 Before her feet thrice prostrate down I fell, My feared hands thrice back she did repel. But doubt thou not (revenge doth grief appease), With thy sharp nails upon ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... of hell! oh it burneth the soul, It scatheth, and blighteth, and killeth the whole; Yet, a Vulture, it gnaweth the quivering liver, Forever consuming, ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley

... dismal sort of piety which showed itself in much going to meeting, in considering her husband a lost and sinful wretch and in the entertaining of a prim-faced, red-nosed, rusty old hypocrite of a preacher who sat by her fireside every evening consuming quantities of toast and pineapple rum, and groaning at the depravity of her husband, who declined to give money to the preacher's society for sending flannel waistcoats and colored handkerchiefs to the infant negroes of the West Indies. As may be imagined, Sam's ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... pardon,—I am afraid I was unintelligibly idiomatic. To divide, I should say, you consuming one-half, I the other. Am I ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston

... to experience a certain awe of this great nature. There was grandeur even in her contrition, and as I took in the expression of her colourless features, sweet with almost an unearthly sweetness in spite of the anguish consuming her, I suddenly realised what Sinclair's love for her must be. I also as suddenly realised the depth and extent of his suffering. To call such a woman his, to lead her almost to the foot of the altar, and then to see her turn aside and leave ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... to what different purposes are the same places applied! Where the consuming martyr expired[10], the unwieldy prize hog is exposed to sale; and the modern parisian derives the sources of warmth and comfort, from a place, the very name of which, once chilled the circulation of his blood. The site of the Bastille is now a magazine of wood, ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... "that these poor people should have remained in their villages. They have nothing which would tempt the cupidity of the Roman soldiers, and no evil might have befallen them; whereas now they will perish by famine or disease, or be slain by the Romans, besides consuming the food which would have sustained the fighting men. Were I master of Jerusalem I would, when I heard the Romans were approaching, have cleared out from the city all who could not aid in the defense It would have seemed a harsh action; but it would ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty

... as a little glow and a little shiver; to Sandy it was more like a ravaging fire in his heart, which lighted up a world of such unutterable bliss that he cheerfully added fresh fuel to the flames that were consuming him. The one absorbing necessity of his existence was to see Ruth daily, and the amount of strategy, forethought, and subtilty with which he accomplished it argued well for his future ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... from the table; and, for the first time during the interview, her hand was removed from the pocket in her skirt. Hope filled the heart in which but now the fires of hell had seemed to burn. She drank in his words with a soul-consuming thirst The proof! ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... as the calculating policy of a shrewd and watchful politician, had there not been seen behind it a fixedness of principle which from the first determined his purpose, and grew more intense with every year, consuming his life by its energy. Yet his sensibilities were not acute; he had no vividness of imagination to picture to his mind the horrors of the battle-field or the sufferings in hospitals; his conscience was more ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft

... time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked (burnt as they called it) without the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress it. Then began the rude form of ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... they met him again at Geneva. Cary had been feeding the swans in the blue waters about the little isle of J.J. Rousseau, and was figuring how much he'd have to pay in costs and fines if he yielded to his consuming desire to "drop a donick" on the head of one of them that had spit at him, when Flo suddenly gasped, "Oh! there's——" and stopped short. Loungers and passers-by looked up and shrugged their Gallic shoulders and exchanged ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... their first appearance had affected me, led my thoughts after a while in another direction, which was anything but agreeable. It occurred to me that these two might only be representatives of a larger collection of these voracious birds, and that the remainder might now be occupied in consuming all the fresh meat we had so laboriously transported with us and spread all over the plain in our depots. It is incredible what a flock of these birds of prey can get rid of; it would not matter if the meat were frozen as hard as iron, they would ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... North an animosity was aroused. It slumbered long in the germ, but being assiduously cherished from year to year it at last budded and bloomed in a clime congenial to its nature, & is now bringing forth its venomous fruit, even to a "hundred fold." It was the consuming of this pernicious fruit that brought death upon our "Body Politic" and produced all our woe. Would to God that woe should fall upon none but those who "planted & watered" it! I am perfectly conscious and cognizant of the manner ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant

... before many minutes had passed every man was puffing and blowing like a spent horse. A cup of acorn coffee and a fragment of brown bread could scarcely be declared ideal fare upon which to pursue such energy-consuming labour. And we ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... that "the besetting evil of all educated people is that they tend to substitute theories for things." The uneducated man never makes this mistake. He states the simple fact that he sees a German drinking beer: he does not say "there is a Teuton consuming alcohol." ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... myself am an instance of a man who had a strange belief. Indeed, it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on my being put under control. I used to fancy that life was a positive and perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live things, no matter how low in the scale of creation, one might indefinitely prolong life. At times I held the belief so strongly that I actually tried to take human life. The doctor here will bear me out that on one occasion I tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... manner. The Ways and Means Committee of the House, the chairman of which was Sereno Payne, held preliminary public "hearings," which were open to any who desired to offer testimony or make requests. Naturally, however, the great body of the consuming public was little represented; most of those who appeared were manufacturers, importers and other interested parties. The bill drawn up by the Committee and passed by the House revised existing duties, ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... would call a glowing fire, would astonish an American. A half a dozen sticks, not much larger or longer than his fingers, laid crosswise in a little hearth, is sufficient for a man's chamber. A log which one of our western farmers would think nothing of consuming in a winter's evening, would bring quite a handsome sum in Paris on any winter day. The truth is, the economical traveler had better not spend his winter in Paris, for comfort at that time costs money. The houses admit such volumes of cold air, the windows are so ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... saw them ride away, and persuaded herself that she was glad. Vengeance was about to fall upon this insolent freebooter who had not even manhood enough to appreciate a kindness. But as the hours passed she was beset by a consuming anxiety. What more likely than that he would resist! If so, there could be only one end. She could not keep her thoughts from those seven men whom she had sent ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... Never, not even in the Paris which James loved, has an artist put his intentions and his self-criticism more definitively upon paper. The secret of Henry James is told plainly enough here: a specially equipped intelligence, a freedom from normal responsibilities, a consuming desire to create beautiful things, and, as life unfolded its complexities and nuances before his vision, an increasing passion to seek the beauty which lies entangled and betrayed, a beauty often adumbrated rather than made plastic, stories that must be ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... distinguished Englishman have been followed, in part at least, by several enlightened nations, but to the disgrace of our republic, and to the great cost of the producing and consuming masses, we are lagging behind in these respects, becoming a camp-follower instead of a leader in the march of progress, because of the influence exerted by a small class, who have grown so powerful through special privileges given to them by ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... good property of such things as men, did regardless of the laws of those States, insult the sovereign flag, which was alike the protection of property and citizen, no matter in what part of the world it floated, and set all the niggers free! After consuming an hour in arguments of this stamp, the General claimed to have made out his case, inasmuch as the niggers being property to the laws of the States to which they belonged, and the flag of the United States being absolute in its character of a protection,—no ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... play of forces, and reveals something that has activity in itself, the kindling, burning power of fire, though not yet fire which gives light. In the outer world it is the bursting forth of the elemental, fusing, consuming powers of Nature which may either construct or destroy. In the inner world it is the birth of self-consciousness on its lower levels, the awaking of the soul, the kindling of passion, and desire, and purpose. Any one of these four lower "qualities" may stay at its own level, remain in itself, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... whirling with all the strain he had gone through, his pulses were still hammering with the consuming anger which had raged in him as he stood beside his friend defending him to the last. And it had all proved useless. Jim Thorpe had been condemned by the ballot of his fellow citizens. Death—a hideous, disgraceful death was to be his, at the moment when the gray dawn should first lift the ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... properly stuffed, Are meant, I suppose, to be zealously puffed. When we take them in hand, a consuming desire Attacks us to set the gay trifles on fire. Yet, the brand being good (here's the point of my joke), They are always enjoyed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various

... retaining the pilot, sent the rest away with his pinnace, giving them a butt of wine and some victuals, and their wearing clothes, and so they departed. The same night we came with the island called by the Portugals Ilha do Fogo, that is, the burning island; in the north side whereof is a consuming fire. The matter is said to be of sulphur, but, notwithstanding, it is like to be a commodious island, because the Portugals have built, and do inhabit there. Upon the south side thereof lieth a most pleasant and sweet island, the trees whereof are always green ...
— Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World • Francis Pretty

... excitement had lighted a heavy cigar and was consuming it with jerky puffs, a bit of thoughtlessness rather pardonable under the stress of the moment. For he was beginning to entertain doubts. It was not impossible for this Napoleonic chap to have a chart, to know of the treasure's ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... and Sukey became fountain-heads of unhallowed knowledge upon subjects concerning which every young girl, however pure, has a consuming curiosity. ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major

... for the family,—in short, did almost everything for them but get their clothing. There was no office in a perfectly appointed household, from that of steward down to that of stable-boy, which he did not cheerfully assume. His round of work not consuming all his energies, he must needs cultivate the Doctor's garden, which he kept in one perpetual bloom, from the blowing of the first crocus to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... by them, and love them forever. But to those who answered not to it, and far more, who dared to abuse it; who thought that God's love was weakness; that the liberty to which they were called, was the liberty of devils, the liberty of doing evil as they would; to all such, God was still a consuming fire, and their most merciful Saviour himself was a judge to try their very hearts and reins; in short, the gospel was to them, not salvation, but condemnation; it awakened not the better, but the baser parts of their nature; it did not ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... those obtuse youths who can never take in more than one idea at a time. His present idea was football. He had come up this term with a consuming ambition to get into the fifteen, and had played hard and desperately to secure his end. Last week, when Brinkman was obliged to retire, he thought his chance was come, and great was his mortification when he found that his nomination was not accepted by the ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... that have put him in possession he could successfully assert a God-given and world-old right to the noses of others. At present the honest fellow is mainly engaged in refreshing himself upon his own nose, consuming that comestible with avidity and precision; but the Vaillants, Ravechols, Mosts and Willeys are pointing his appetite to other snouts than his, and inspiring him with rhinophagic ambition. Meantime the rest of us are using those imperiled ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... satirist! There is no humor In what you see and I see when we look On this crude world wherein our lives are spent— This sordid sphere where we are but spectators— This crass grim modern spectacle of lives Torn with consuming lust of one desire— Gold, gold, forever gold— Or do you ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke

... light when it is turned over with the flat of the flame horizontal, until the flame becomes saucer-shaped, as I show you. You can see for yourselves the increase in light; and in addition to this the workman has the great advantage of a shadowless flame. In practice, a burner consuming 5 cubic feet of gas per hour with a horizontal flame is a better fitter's than an upright burner with 6 cubic feet per hour. I do not believe in the policy of giving a man a poor light to work by—it does not pay; and I never expect to get a man ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various

... Christian, a subscriber to hospitals, a benefactor of the poor, a model husband and father, a shrewd, practical independent Englishman, and what not, when he is really a pitiful parasite on the commonwealth, consuming a great deal, and producing nothing, feeling nothing, knowing nothing, believing nothing, and doing nothing except what all the rest do, and that only because he is afraid not to do it, or at least pretend ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw

... of the failure of his murderous attempt. What would he not have given to have known the truth! to have had the dreadful word removed from the light which shone upon it brighter and brighter every day until it was made red-hot, as it were, and became within him as a consuming fire! Preferring darkness to light more than ever, Gorman kept in secret places during the day, and only ventured out, with other human vultures, at night. The wretched man feared the darkness, too, although he sought it, and what between the darkness ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... rest of the day he was very quiet and sat gazing before him His boisterousness had vanished. Symington-Tearle had left us—a man deeply amazed and totally incredulous. I noticed that Sarakoff scarcely smoked at all during that morning. As a rule his pipe was never out. He was in the habit of consuming two ounces of tobacco a day, which in my opinion was suicidal. He certainly lit his pipe several times, mechanically, but laid it aside almost immediately. At lunch—we had not moved out of the house yet—we had very little appetite. As a matter of interest I will give exactly what we ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... of our guest. He partook of it liberally, and said he had never eaten any jam so good; it had a particular tang to it, he declared, which outdid his best recollections of all previous raspberry jam from his boyhood up. While he was in the midst of these rhapsodies, and still consuming their subject with enthusiasm, my mother, who had taken some of the jam on her own plate, suddenly made a ghastly discovery. The jam-pot had been for several days standing in the cupboard with its top off, or ajar, and an innumerable colony of almost microscopic ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... school-desks, scored with the deep-cut initials of generations of Sark boys, sat the dead man's widow, tense and quivering, her eyes consuming fires in deep black wells, her face livid, her hands clenched still as though waiting ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... explain to his father the absolute torture of the last four years of enervating domesticity and business mediocrity—the torture of the Beauty within him crying for expression, half satisfied by the stolen evenings at the art school but constantly growing stronger in its all-consuming appeal. No, life to his father was a simple problem in army ethics—a problem in which duty was "a", one of the known factors; "x," the unknown, was either "bravery" or "cowardice" when brought in contact with "a". Having solved this problem, his father ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart

... historians—they had all found man out, just as he had done. Discovering an echo of his beliefs, he thrilled with hot delight. He met allies amongst the poets, and adored them. It is strange how sympathetic books drift to the hand of a reader possessed with a consuming idea; how they gather around him, fall open to his eye, and give up the thing he yearns to feed on. Without the knowledge necessary to selection, Jim had an affinity for books of pessimistic doctrine, and though both means and opportunities were limited, he gathered ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... is now in baptism this efficacy of the blood of Christ. That is the true caustic soap which not only removes the uncleanness of the outer man, but penetrates to the inner nature, consuming its impurities and cleansing them away, that the heart may become pure in God's sight. Thus, the blood of Christ is so effectively mingled with the baptismal water that we must not regard it as mere water, but water beautifully ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... consecrated himself, body and soul, to the service of his divinity, to the holy fire, but in time he is mastered by an earthly love with all its glow and passion, till his priestly vows dissolve in its consuming flame." ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... re-read the note; she saw nothing but this sheet of white paper streaked with black lines; the universe held for her nothing but that paper; everything was dark around her. The glare of the conflagration that was consuming the edifice of her happiness lighted up the page, for blackest night enfolded her. The shouts of her little Wenceslas at play fell on her ear, as if he had been in the depths of a valley and she on a high mountain. Thus insulted at four-and-twenty, ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... thoughts there came also with it and arising out of it quite a series of new moods and dispositions. At times she was very full of the desire "to do something," something that would, as it were, satisfy and assuage this growing uneasiness of responsibility in her mind. At times her consuming wish was not to assuage but escape from this urgency. It worried her and made her feel helpless, and she wanted beyond anything else to get back to that child's world where all experiences are adventurous and everything is finally right. She ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... time there had begun the pitiful procession which was to empty the Big House of its company. The tracks were nearly cleared by the wrecking crew, and long rows of fires were consuming the broken evidences of the ruin that had been wrought. The injured had been cared for as best might be by the physicians of the relief train, and this train, with its burden of the living and the dead, ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough



Words linked to "Consuming" :   time-consuming, intense



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com