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Cower   Listen
verb
Cower  v. t.  To cherish with care. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cower" Quotes from Famous Books



... the runner directed his course to the garden. Louise's little dog ran to meet him, barking furiously, but came back, to cower, creep, and growl behind its mistress; for even dumb animals can distinguish when men are driven on by the furious energy of irresistible passion, and dread to cross or encounter them in their career. The fugitive rushed into the garden at the same reckless pace. His head ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... name, and he told me his. And he was, he said, Sir Dewin of Castle Cower. And I told him that I was faring south seeking any great adventure, so that I might gain glory and renown. "For," I said, "I wish to find a knight who is stronger and more dexterous ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... round him the pressure of this secret. The air was full of thoughts that he could not apprehend. Behind the benignant evasiveness of the doctors he seemed to discern a fact, like a thunderbolt withheld. He recoiled from his conjectures, to cower amid these shadows which he felt might be less agonizing ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... and swear that you are telling me the truth!" cried her strange companion, as she stepped close to Edith's side, laid a violent hand upon her arm, and searched her face with a look that must have made her shrink and cower if she had ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... coals is the same as to cower over the coals, as a gipsy over a fire. Thus Hodge says of Gammer Gurton ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various

... earth, out of the mist, but whence and how it is impossible to say, there come other angels dark of hue and foul smelling. But the white angels carry swords, and they wave these swords, and the scene is reflected in them as in a mirror; and the dark angels cower in a corner of the cemetery, but they do not ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore

... out a grumbler, all sulky and sour, But for Christopher's temper such trash was too much; And it soon made the malecontent quiver and cower, When he saw preparations for handling the Crutch. "Lay your croaking aside," The old gentleman cried, "Or I'll make you eat up each ungenerous word: Not our deadliest foe, Such injustice should know, And far less shall a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... dirt disfigured, elbows peeped from out his sleeves. Rat-tat-tat, upon the entrance, brought Aunt Hannah to the door; Parched lips humbly plead for water, as she scanned his misery o'er; Wrathful came the dame's quick answer; made him cower, shame, and start Out of sight, despairing, saddened, hurt and angry to the heart. "Drink! You've had enough, you rascal. Faugh! The smell now makes me sick, Move, you thief! Leave now these grounds, sir, or our dogs will help you quick." ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... let it, if he were here alone. That was it. He had had enough of threats that made him sick with the reaction of nervous violence. He had had enough of real violence that recoiled on himself and made him cower under the shadow of the law. He was going to turn her out of the house, the baby with her. And he did not seem to be suffering much over it, now he had made up his mind. Perhaps, now that the scene of the morning—three together ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... chatting to her brother William, and sometimes fondling a white dove, which she had petted and trained with such success that it was then amenable to almost every light injunction she laid upon it. It sat upon her shoulder, which, indeed, was its usual seat, would peck her cheek, cower as if with a sense of happiness in her bosom, and put its bill to her lips, from which it was usually fed, either to demand some sweet reward for its obedience, or to express its attachment by a profusion of ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... them!" cried Santa Anna. "The Texans cower before such a splendid force! They will lay down ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... disparagingly, "and they say they may have to have me out here next Sunday—somebody's sick or missing. But they won't," he continued darkly. It was a threat, we felt—a threat that would make some presumptuous superior cower and conform. "I really belong at our branch in Dellwood Park, where there is something; not out here, beyond the last of everything." And he said more to indicate that his energies and abilities were temporarily going ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... and bourgeoneth, for as the season is lusty to behold and comfortable, so man and woman rejoice and gladden of summer coming with his fresh flowers: for winter with his rough winds and blasts causeth a lusty man and woman to cower and sit fast by the fire. So in this season, as in the month of May, it befell a great anger and unhap that stinted not till the flower of chivalry of all the world was destroyed and slain; and all was long upon two unhappy knights the which were ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... thou art Craves—and shame bids not breath within him cease - Craves of the woman that thou knowest I am Peace? Ay, take hands at parting, and release Each heart, each hand, each other: shall the lamb, The lamb-like woman, born to cower and bleed, Withstand his will whose choice may save or damn Her days and nights, her word and thought and deed - Take heart to outdare her lord the lion? How Should this be—if the lion's imperial seed Life not against his sire as brave a brow As frowns upon his mother?—Peace be then Between ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... pointed out that this conception has its roots deep in primitive human nature: The Birth of Humility, Oxford, 1910, p. 17. 'It would, perhaps, be fanciful to say that man tends to run away from the sacred as uncanny, to cower before it as secret, and to prostrate himself before it as tabu. On the other hand, it seems plain that to these three negative qualities of the sacred taken together there corresponds on the part of man a certain negative ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... excitement.] They are afraid of your gold! Afraid of your gold! All the world is afraid of it! It is nothing—it is a dream ... it is a nightmare! If they would defy you... if they would open their eyes... it would go as all nightmares go! But you have made them believe in it! They cower and cringe before it! They toil and slave for it! They take up arms and murder their brothers for it! They sell their minds and their souls for it! And all because no one dares to defy you! No one! No one! [In a sudden transport of passion.] ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair

... colossal threatened impact he crouched down to the deck. Above him, falling upon him like a bolt from the blue, was a winged hawk unthinkably vaster than the one he had encountered. But in his crouch was no hint of cower. His crouch was a gathering together, an assembling of all the parts of him under the rule of the spirit of him, for the spring upward to meet in mid ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... may take you with your irons! Shall we, men who followed Red Jabez through a sea of blood, cower to a woman of such soft mettle? Dolores, queen or woman or wench, it is for you, not us, to explain. Lads—" he shrieked, flashing about and haranguing his companions—"back me in this. We will know why the sloop lacked powder; why to-day's work has ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... that figure best admits of junction. Before I quitted the premises, however, I learned that Tarleton, the actor of those times, was not buried at St. Saviour's, Southwark, as he wished, near Massinger and Cower, but at Shoreditch Church. He was the first of the profession whose fame was high enough to have his portrait solicited for to be set up as a Sign; and none but he and Garrick, I believe, ever obtained that honour. Mr. Dance's picture of our friend ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... theatre had saved a box for her and came to usher her to its discomfort. But all her usual pleasure was gone. She nodded miserably over the silver-gilt rail at friends. She knew that people were craning from far seats. Her bulk and her shadow effaced the man beside her. He seemed to cower a little. At eight the show began, and Mrs. Egg felt darkness as a blessing, although the shimmer from the screen ran like phosphorus over the bald head, and a flash of white between two parts of the advertisement showed the dark wrinkles ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... and Mrs Pawkie made tea for them, and they soon began to play with our own younger children, in blythe forgetfulness of the storm; every now and then, however, the eldest of them, when the shutters rattled and the lum-head roared, would pause in his innocent daffing, and cower in towards Mrs Pawkie, as if he was daunted and dismayed by something he knew ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... woods to dwell. The plan, O Queen, which I advise Secures thy weal if thou be wise. So we and all thy kith and kin Advantage from thy gain shall win. Shall Bharat, meet for happier fate, Born to endure his rival's hate, With all his fortune ruined cower And dread his brother's mightier power! Up, Queen, to save thy son, arise; Prostrate at Rama's feet he lies. So the proud elephant who leads His trooping consorts through the reeds Falls in the forest ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... to ye, Marcella—I think often, now, of that poor wee broken arm, and how ye used to cower away from me! I wish I'd got a grip ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... a drum-head stretch the haggard snows; The mighty skies are palisades of light; The stars are blurred; the silence grows and grows; Vaster and vaster vaults the icy night. Here in my sleeping-bag I cower and pray: "Silence and night, ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... a little flower 'Neath a great oak tree: When the tempest 'gan to lower Little heeded she: No need had she to cower, For she dreaded not its power— She was happy in the bower Of her great oak tree! Sing hey, Lackaday! Let the tears fall free For the pretty little flower ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... which, when he let it down, hung to his knees. He often hunted alone in the Indian country, a hundred miles beyond the Ohio. As he dared not light a bright fire on these trips, he would, on cold nights, make a small coal-pit, and cower over it, drawing his blanket over his head, when, to use his own words, he soon became as hot as in a "stove room." Once he surprised four Indians sleeping in their camp; falling on them he killed three. Another time, when pursued by the same number of foes, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... the justness of its cause, bore away the palm, and plucked from the brow of its more aged competitor many a laurel yet green from the ensanguined fields of Europe. In scores of hotly-contested battles, the British lion, unused as it was to cower before a foe, was compelled to "lick the dust" in defeat. At York, at Chippewa, at Fort Erie, at Lundy's Lane, at New Orleans, on Lake Champlain, on Lake Erie, on the broad ocean, Great Britain and the world were taught lessons of American valor, skill, and energy, which ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... fight hyenas; never even to defend their own lives. They may bark or howl while the hyena is some distance away, but as soon as it comes near they are silent; and when it approaches them, they simply cower and submit. Not only that, but it is beyond question that hyenas have the power to call dogs to them. . . . For five weeks I have been alone in this tent six nights in every week all night, with two children and the spartan soul of Nels the Great Dane dog; and I have seen ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... "Let there be trouble—the more the better. This system has got to end, sooner or later. These capitalists with their speculation and corners and trusts make things go from bad to worse. Why should I cower in Rawdon's office, like a frightened dog, while hunger walks the streets? Hunger is the master revolutionary. When he comes we ought to turn out and salute him. Anyway, I'M ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... roused to an unexpected burst of wrath. His eyes kindled with rage, and he darted a glance at the intruders which made them cower and shrink from his rebuke. In a moment he grew calm, relapsing into his usual moody and thoughtful attitude. Taking courage, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... mysterious link. That I cannot tell. But this I can tell you. I have let go your hand, and you are going to fall down a great precipice, George, a precipice of which I cannot see the foot. Yes, it is right that you should cower before me now; I have cowered before you for more than twenty years. You made me what I am. I am going into the next room now till my carriage comes, I did not order it till half-past ten. Do not follow me. But before I go ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... and abashed, seemed to crouch before her, and to shrink and cower down, as if in the presence of some superior creature, the child herself was sensible of a new feeling within her, which elevated her nature, and inspired her with an energy and confidence she had never known. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... has reached the rock, Wotan's voice is heard: "Bruennhilde, stand!" At the sound of it, Bruennhilde's heart fails her; the hearts of the sisters, too, soften. Crowding together on the rocky peak, they let the culprit cower out of sight among them. But Wotan is not deceived; he addresses to the hidden daughter such sharp and searching reproaches that, her fear for herself losing all importance as these strike her heart, she steps forth from among the sister-Valkyries and meekly stands ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... should man fear any more The voice of Pytho's dome, or cower before These birds that shriek above us? They foretold Me for my father's murderer; and behold, He lies in Corinth dead, and here am I And never touched the sword.... Or did he die In grief for me who left him? In that way I may have wrought his death.... ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles

... Winnipeg that he did not know; not a policeman in Winnipeg that had not seen his swift and shadowy form in the gray dawn as he passed where he would; not a Dog in Winnipeg that did not cower and bristle when the telltale wind brought proof that old Garou was crouching near. His only path was the warpath, and all the world his foes. But throughout this lurid, semi-mythic record there was one recurring pleasant thought—Garou never ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... was a boy, thrust by mischance into a man's body,—a boy who could complacently pluck a butterfly, wing from wing, or cower in abject terror before a lean, nervy fellow, not half his size. He was a selfish cry-baby, hidden behind a man's mustache and stature, and glossed over with a skin-deep veneer of culture and conventionality. Yes; he was ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London

... would come she would cower down in the bottom of the cart and cry and pray. Storms terrified her. It seemed as if all the anger of the heavens were levelled at her. She would cry and moan pitifully whilst O'Connell would try to soothe her and tell her that neither God nor man would harm her—no ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... and severe, I ask you to believe that she had grace to fill it with life, to move at ease in it, to press it into soft and rounded lines. Her linked companions also were beauties of their day—that sleek and sleepy Nicoletta, that ruddy Guglielmotta; but they seemed to cower in their rigid clothes, and they ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... name, the crater, was well deserved. It was a seething pit of death filled with smoke, and from which came shouts and cries as the rim of it blazed with the fire of those who were pouring in such a stream of metal. Inside the pit the men could only cower low in the hope that the hurricane of missiles would ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... rosy-cheeked, black-haired, pert girl of about eighteen, who under ordinary circumstances would have found herself able to answer, with a due degree of smartness, any question which might have been addressed to her. But fright will sometimes cower the stoutest heart, and Molly, standing before the coroner at this juncture, presented anything but a reckless appearance, her naturally rosy cheeks blanching at the first word addressed to her, and her head falling forward on her breast in a confusion too genuine ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... this climax is wonderful. There is perhaps nothing, of its own kind, to equal it upon the present stage. Well may the king's haughty parasites cower, and shrink aghast from the ominous voice, the finger of doom, the arrows of those lurid, unbearable eyes! But it is in certain intellectual elements and pathetic undertones that the part of Richelieu, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... again. Though she recognised dimly the compelling power of this religion, and that it was one which, if sincerely embraced, would make the smallest details of life momentous with eternal weight, yet she knew that her soul could never respond to it, and whether saved or damned that it could only cower in miserable despair under a Deity that was so sovereign ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... whispers to me, 'it looks as if her oppression was going to get better.' 'Yes,' I said, very much surprised; 'your wife is a wonderful woman, Giorgio.' Just then a shot was fired in the kitchen, which made us jump and cower as if at a thunder-clap. It seems that the party of soldiers had stolen quite close up, and one of them had crept up to the door. He looked in, thought there was no one there, and, holding his rifle ready, entered quietly. The chief told ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... it must be the Queen Sudarshana who is approaching near. [Aside to SUVARNA.] Suvarna, you must not hide and cower behind me like that. Mind, the umbrella in ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)

... me out," speaking now bitterly and swiftly, "retaining my few belongings, and calling me a foul name which made me cower away like a whipped child. I had nothing left—nothing. For a week I had listened to no kind word, met with no kind act. I was upon the street, alone, at night, purposeless, homeless, wandering aimlessly from place to ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... waiting for the butcher's knife; if ye are men, follow me! strike down yon sentinel, and gain the mountain passes, and there do bloody work as did your sires at old Thermopyl! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that ye do crouch and cower like base-born slaves, beneath your master's lash? O! comrades! warriors! Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves; if we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors; if we must die, let us die under the open sky, by the bright waters, in ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... his power: Or, if he was, knew not its full extent. He knew his glance would make a wild beast cower, And yet he knew not that his large eyes sent Into the heart of woman the same thrill That made the lion servant of his will. And even strong men ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... electrician; electricity by that time will be a fearful power in the hands of science. Edison with his genius and marvellous discoveries, and others of like gifts, will have perfected the use of this agent in a wonderful degree. Anti-Christ will make use of this power to cower his enemies and bring them in fear-subjection. He will bring fire down from heaven. The two witnesses, however, will be clothed with Divine power; they will be able to bring fire by a simple command—this they both understood and used ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... mother, pretending prettily to cower before him. "What a tone! What a look! What have I ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... gaunt, powerful man: no feature of his face decided, and yet for all that it had the significance of a countenance hewn out of rock. Never had he corrected her with hand or whip, the ring in his voice had always been sufficient to cower her. But never had the hand touched her with a father's caress; never had he taken her into his arms; never had he kissed her. She had never been "My child" or "My dear"; always ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... continues to scold, giving each a sharp cut that at once reduces them to quiescence, causing them to cower at her feet. "Do you not see the mistake you have made?" she goes on addressing the dogs; "don't you see the caballero is not an Indio? It is well, sir!" she adds, turning to the caballero, "well that your skin is white. Had it been copper-coloured, ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... in the church steeple with the flames mounting closer round them and the troopers whooping jubilantly outside, Chenier and his eighty followers call out: "We are done! We are sold! Let us jump!" Chenier jumps from the steeple, is hit by the flying bullets, and perishes as he falls. His men cower back in the flaming steeple till it falls with a crash into the burning ruins. Amid the ash heap are afterwards found the corpses of seventy-two patriots. The troopers take one hundred prisoners in the region, then set fire to ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... the North wind blows; to-day our hearts are one, Though you are 'mid the English snows and I in Austral sun; You, when you hear the Northern blast, pile high a mightier fire, Our ladies cower until it's past ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... said Jean. "So happy that I'm almost afraid. Isn't it odd how one seems to cower down to avoid drawing the attention of the Fates to one's happiness, saying, 'It is naught, it is ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... after brother, no man for another cares. The gods in heaven are frightened, refuge they seek, Upward they mount to the heaven of Anu. Like a dog in his lair, So cower the gods together at the bars of heaven. Ishtar cries out in pain, loud cries the exalted goddess:— All is turned to mire. This evil to the gods I announced, to the gods foretold the evil. This exterminating war foretold Against ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... and then mendaciously represented him as the thief and kidnapper who is found in your own person; then, sir, would you vail your face and go out no more among men, but upon your forehead, as now upon your soul, would be the brand of thief, robber, murderer! Ay, well may you cower! well may the cold sweat force itself out upon your brow! Did it never enter into your debased mind that the villain who is degraded enough to sell himself to crime for a little sordid dust, will, for a larger sum, betray ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... with slaves, nor reign O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke; She left the down-trod nations in disdain, And flew to Greece, when Liberty awoke, New-born, amid those glorious vales, and broke Sceptre and chain with her fair youthful hands: ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... lamplight, like a vision from some world of which poor Dorothea could scarcely form the vaguest conception, came a pale haughty woman, beautiful exceedingly, before whom Jim, her own Jim, usually so defiant, seemed to cower and tremble like a dog. Even in that moment of bewilderment Dorothea's eye, woman-like, marked the mode in which Miss Bruce's long black hair was twisted, and missed neither the cut ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... them joyous forth their women came, And led them back in triumph to the fold; Taunting their foes with many a bitter shame, Though now they lay in Death's aims stark and cold: Whilst the poor captives, rack'd with fear and woe, Cower'd close together from ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... his life Courtrey, the bully, felt a premonitory chill down his spine—because for the first time that promising glance of his failed of its effect! Only here and there along the rows of faces did one cower. There were faces, many faces, that looked back at him with steady eyes and tight lips.... Verily it was time he conquered the riding, shooting, beautiful she-devil who had made this thing possible! ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... silent and angry King and saluting him said: "The village is punished, the men are stricken to dust, and the women cower in their unlit ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore

... thing. Suddenly Mr. Ricardo seemed to shrivel—to cower back into himself. His fierce, triumphant energy had gone as at a blasting touch of magic. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... from cottage elm To stay his steps with faintness overcome; 'Twas dark and void as ocean's watery realm Roaring with storms beneath night's starless gloom; No gipsy cower'd o'er fire of furze or broom; 140 No labourer watched his red kiln glaring bright, Nor taper glimmered dim from sick man's room; Along the waste no line of mournful light From lamp of lonely toll-gate ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... sparkling snow cut into little crystals by the horse's flying feet, dashed into their faces, and the scraps of laughter and merry nonsense from the other sleighs, made Polly want nothing so much as to cower down into the corner of the big fur ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney

... stirs Morgan, and he seems to cower half timidly under the words, as if they were blows. Mary has already grasped her father's hand, and holds on ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur

... was, however, before which even Eliza herself, hardened wretch as she seemed, used to cower and shiver; and that was the great black bumble-bee, the largest and most powerful of the British bee-kind. When one of these dangerous monsters, a burly, buzzing bourgeois, got entangled in her web, Eliza, shaking in her shoes ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... have been impossible for the sycophants of Louis XIV. to flatter more dexterously. For my part, I am persuaded that in all governments, whatever their nature may be, servility will cower to force, and adulation will cling to power. The only means of preventing men from degrading themselves, is to invest no one with that unlimited authority which is the surest ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... of a dying man. A fitful storm was brewing, and between the plashes of rain on the windows there was the silence of death. All nature suffers in such moments, the trees writhe in pain and hide their heads; the birds of the fields cower under the bushes; the streets of cities are deserted. I was suffering from my wound. But a short time before I had a mistress and a friend. The mistress had deceived me and the friend had stretched me on a bed of pain. I could ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... and strong, Clatter'd a hundred steeds along, Their peal the merry horns rung out, A hundred voices join'd the shout; With hark, and whoop, and wild halloo, No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew. Far from the tumult fled the roe, Close in her covert cower'd the doe; The falcon, from her cairn on high, Cast on the rout a wondering eye, Till far beyond her piercing ken The hurricane had swept the glen. Faint, and more faint, its failing din Return'd from cavern, cliff, and linn, And silence settled, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... helpless in the grasp of old Boreas, the inhabitants did little except cower in their lodges around their fires and eat and sleep. This sort of existence grew almost intolerable to the brothers. With every muscle and nerve yearning for action, they became impatient and sometimes fretful. When they spoke of themselves as ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... he openly renounced all patent rights. He said that everybody on board ought to take the stage in turn—he himself was quite content to retire on his early laurels. So all hands took pains to contradict Cranze and to cower with a fine show of dramatic ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... the doing of the grandest duty that ever ennobled man, to the grief of the greatest infamy that ever crushed him down. You would hold him back from prizes before which Olympian laurels fade, for a fate before which a Helot slave might cower. His country in the agony of her death-struggle calls to him for succor. All the blood in all the ages, poured out for liberty, poured out for him, cries unto him from the ground. All that life has of noble, of heroic, beckons him forward. Death itself wears ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... helpless thing, That, in the merry months o' spring, Delighted me to hear thee sing, What comes o' thee? Whare wilt thou cower thy chittering wing, An' close ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... beseechingly, at once deprecating severity and asking kindness. The poor animal had evidently been used to gentle treatment; it would look up in a boy's face, and give a leap, fawning on him, and then bark in a small doubtful voice, and cower a moment on the ground, astonished perhaps at the strangeness, the bustle and animation. The boys were beside themselves with eagerness; there was quite a babble of voices, arguing, discussing, suggesting. Each one had a plan of his own which he brought before the ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... the list at the office to see whether our names were there—in order to avoid us. But you cannot avoid us. We do not mean that you shall avoid us. We will dog you now through life—not by lies or subterfuges, as you say, but openly and honestly. It is YOU who need to slink and cower, not we. The prosecutor need not descend to the sordid shifts of ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... And spreads his ensign in the wilderness: Exults in chains; and, when the rebel falls, Cries like the blood of Abel from the dust; 355 And the inheritors of the earth, like beasts When earthquake is unleashed, with idiot fear Cower in their kingly dens—as I do now. What were Defeat when Victory must appal? Or Danger, when Security looks pale?— 360 How said the messenger—who, from the fort Islanded in the Danube, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... Ideal that we wooed 130 Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, And cries reproachful: "Was it, then, my praise, And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth; I claim of thee the promise of thy youth; Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase, 135 The victim of thy genius, not its mate!" Life may be given in many ways, And loyalty to Truth be sealed As bravely in the closet as the field, So bountiful is Fate; 140 But then to stand beside her, When craven churls deride her, To front a lie in arms and not to yield, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... There stood a massive altar. Overhead, With drooping boughs, a venerable bay Its shadowy foliage o'er the home-gods spread. Here, with her hundred daughters, pale with dread, Poor Hecuba and all her female train, As doves, that from the low'ring storm have fled, And cower for shelter from the pelting rain, Crouch round the silent gods, and cling to them ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... some little hollow to the lee of an insignificant tuft of grass, and there she will have nestled and fidgeted about till she has made a smooth, round, grassy bed, compact and fitted to her shape, where she may curl herself snugly up, and cower down below the level of the cutting night wind. Follow her example. A man, as he lies upon his mother earth, is an object so small and low that a screen of eighteen inches high will guard him securely from the strength of a storm. A common mistake of a novice ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... your originative force to the extraordinary production of wealth in America. America is as rich, not as Wall Street, not as the financial centres in Chicago and St. Louis and San Francisco; it is as rich as the people that make those centres rich. And if those people hesitate in their enterprise, cower in the face of power, hesitate to originate designs of their own, then the very fountains which make these places abound in wealth are dried up at the source. By setting the little men of America free, you ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson

... hands trembled on the wheel, and his eyes were misty. Eben never saw him look at him in such a way before. Had he stormed and raged it would have but increased his defiance. But that look of silent reproach smote his very soul, causing him to cower conscience stricken. Without a word, he left his father's side and went forward. And there he stood with his hands behind his back, staring straight before him. The captain watched him anxiously. His mind was greatly confused over the ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody

... have Nicolette, my sweet lady that I love so well. For into Paradise go none but such folk as I shall tell thee now: Thither go these same old priests, and halt old men and maimed, who all day and night cower continually before the altars and in the crypts; and such folk as wear old amices and old clouted frocks, and naked folk and shoeless, and covered with sores, perishing of hunger and thirst and of cold, and of ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... crash like thunder, and swept far away into the forest. The very earth trembled and seemed terrified at the dreadful conflict going on above. It seemed to the two friends as if the end of the world were come; and they could do nothing but cower among the branches of the tree and watch the storm in silence; while they felt, in a way they had never before experienced, how utterly helpless they were, and unable to foresee, or avert, the many dangers by which they were surrounded, and ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne

... cringe and whine, And cower in the weeping air— But, oh, she was no kin of mine, And ...
— Nets to Catch the Wind • Elinor Wylie

... to keep away the Evil One, or even to guard against wandering souls on certain feasts of the dead, were all part of my childhood. So to the Marquesan are the goblins that cause him to refuse to go into silent places alone at night, and often make him cower in fear on his own mats, a pareu over his head, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... night; I fain would be that glorious host among, That band of poets who have greatly sung. But woe, alas, I cannot, I no power Of singing have, all my tired heart is wrung To think I might have known a happier hour, And sung myself, not let my aching spirit cower. (tat. 14.) ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... bank in which the Anthophora nests. What will be the result of the experiment? Will it once more cover me with confusion? The weather is cold and rainy; not a Bee shows herself on the few spring flowers that have come out. Numbers of Anthophorae cower, numbed and motionless, at the entrance to the galleries. With the tweezers, I extract them one by one from their lurking-places, to examine them under the lens. The first has Sitaris-larvae on her thorax; ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... answered: "Woe betide!" Said I "The world was made for kings: To him who works and working sings Come joy and majesty and power And steadfast love with royal wings." "O watch these fools that blink and cower," Said that wise man: "and every hour A score is born, a dozen dies." Said I: —"In London fades the flower; But far away the bright blue skies Shall watch my solemn walls arise, And all the glory, all ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker

... spread abroad that a volume was to be published exposing the whole black history, and then the priest began to cower. His Diary is full of his prayers and lamentations. "The book is printed, and the impression is this week arrived here.... I set myself to humble myself before the Lord under these humbling and wondrous dispensations, and obtain the pardon of my sins, ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... confident that Spinoza would be warned by the fate of his heretical predecessor if not counseled by the wisdom of the Fathers. But Spinoza was of a firmness they did not reckon on. He did not hearken to their censure nor cower at their threat. The thirty days or so in which he was given to reform passed without discovering in him any change. Excommunication had to be pronounced. When barely twenty-four years old, Spinoza found himself cut off from the race of Israel with all the prescribed curses of ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... the Christ of power, Thou need'st not before me cower; An unknown knight thou see'st in me, Sent forth by ...
— Ulf Van Yern - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise

... her heart shall shrink and wither, Custom-straitened like her waist, All her thought to cower together, Huddling sheep-like with the rest, With the flock of soulless bodies on ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... I could only cower, Silent, while the night, Seething with its planets, Parted to our sight, Showing us infinity In ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen

... as before. Tom went ahead, while I led the mare and Polly Ann clutched the child to her breast. But when we came in sight of the fort across the clearings the gates were closed. There was nothing to do but cower in the thicket, listening while the battle went on afar, Polly Ann trying to still the cries of the child, lest they should bring death upon us. At length the shooting ceased; stillness reigned; then came a faint halloo, and out of the forest beyond us a man rode, waving his hat at the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... with our native legends and tales, the willows and alders in the fields and by the brooks are peopled with hidden beings, fairies, and witches. They stretch out ghostly arms, as their veils wave over their loose hair, they bow, cower, raise themselves, become as big as giants or as little as dwarfs. They seem to lie in wait for the weak, ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann

... it were foe or friend, to be roused from sleep by the slogan of the Highlander or the cry of the borderer as they swept sheep and kye from every homestead in the valley, to bear hunger and thirst and cold and nakedness, to cower within the peel-tower or lurk in the moorland while barn and byre went up in pitiless flame, to mount and ride at a lord's call on forays as pitiless, this was the rough school in which the Scotch peasant was trained through two hundred years. But it ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... allow'd the Expression, of his own Being, and even of Babylon itself. His capacious Soul now soar'd into Infinity, and he contemplated, with the same Freedom, as if she was disencumber'd from her earthly Partner, on the immutable Order of the Universe. But as soon as she cower'd her Wings, and resumed her native Seat, he began to consider that Astarte might possibly have lost her Life for his Sake; upon which, his Thoughts of the Universe vanish'd all at once, and no other Objects appear'd before his distemper'd Eyes, but his Astarte giving up the Ghost, ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire

... woman to teach people how to dress for the occasion and how to sit, what to avoid and how to avoid it. As it is, we go in a state of nervous agitation, obsequiously costumed; our last vestige of self-assertion vanishes before the unwinking Cyclops eye of the instrument, and we cower at the mercy of the thing and its attendant. They make what they will of us, and the retoucher simply edits the review with an eye to the market. So history is falsified before our faces, and we prepare a lie for our grandchildren. We fail to stamp ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells

... great mist-jotun you will see Lifting himself up silently High and huge o'er the lighthouse top, 300 With hands of wavering spray outspread, Groping after the little tower, That seems to shrink and shorten and cower, Till the monster's arms of a sudden drop, And silently and fruitlessly He sinks back into ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... Carolinians are attempting to govern the Union as they govern their slaves, and there are too many indications that, abetted as they are by all the slave-driving interest of the Union, the free portion will cower before them, and truckle to their ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... we but array all our force in the field, We'd teach these usurpers of power That their bodily safety demands they should yield, And in the presence of manhood should cower; But, alas! for our tethered and impotent state, Chained by notions of knighthood—we can ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the blare of trumpets. No longer do the men of great muscle lord it over the weak and the puny; as a rule they toil and they lift, doing unpleasant, menial duties for hollow-chested, big-domed men with eye-glasses. But among those very spindle-shanked, terra-cotta dwellers who cower at draughts and eat soda mints, the ancient struggle for supremacy wages fiercer than ever. Single combats are fought now as then, and the flavor of victory is quite as sweet to the pallid man back of a roll-top desk as to the swart, bristling ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... a slender, awkward grace. Her eyes were fixed on Maisie, thrown open, expecting pain; but she didn't shrink or cower. ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... true a basis the myth of the wandering Jew rests!" he says in another letter. "In the lonely wooded valley, the mother tells her children the grewsome tale. Terror-stricken the little ones cower close to the hearth. It is night ... the postilion blows his horn ... Jew traders are journeying to the fair at Leipsic. We, the heroes of the legend, are not aware of our part in it. The white beard, whose tips time has rejuvenated, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... should be admitted, tremulously she awaited his sentence upon her mother's peace, and, as she thought of all he must have heard, all he must believe, she felt as if she must flee; or, if that were impossible, cower in shrinking dread of the glance ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge



Words linked to "Cower" :   bow, huddle, crouch, crawl, creep, fawn, stoop, bend, cringe, coward



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