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Killing   Listen
noun
killing  n.  
1.
The act or process of causing a living organism to die.
2.
An unusually large gain in a financial or business transaction or enterprise; as, she made a killing trading cattle futures.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Killing" Quotes from Famous Books



... unpleasant consequences; that he thought this the more probable, as he had often told the Marchioness, when speaking of Matta, that he was the best swordsman in France; for, in truth, the poor gentleman had never fought without having the misfortune of killing his man. ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... was no less, for, excepting a few passing callers on business, this was the first visitor. The faithful cook determined to venture upon an artistic dish, but in this wretched country the materials were not to be had. She thought of killing a few fowls out of the farm-yard; but that measure was violently opposed by Suska, a little Pole, Lenore's confidential maid, who wept over the determined character of the cook, and threatened to call the young lady, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... ears, and mingled strangely with the occasional report of pistols, which seemed echoing each other at stated intervals, from different corners of the field. I could not divine the meaning of these shots, till I was informed, that they proceeded from the Belgians, who were killing the wounded horses. Hundreds of these fine creatures were, indeed, galloping over the plain, kicking and plunging, apparently mad with pain, whilst the poor wounded wretches who saw them coming, and could not get out of their way, shrieked in agony, and tried to shrink back ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various

... exactly where the Crown was kept and how it was guarded; after killing Bold, they had gone straight to it, taken it and gone away—three men in plastic-soled Southron boots and one man in soft boots of sealskins, each with a pack and an ice-staff, and two ...
— The Keeper • Henry Beam Piper

... might seize and use it as occasion should require, I grasped the scalping-knife in my left hand, and with my tomahawk in my right, did not wait for the attack, but rushed upon the foremost Indian, for I knew that my only chance of success lay in the killing or disabling of one before his comrade could come up. At the same time, both to apprise Waunangee of my position, and to daunt my adversaries, I uttered one of these tremendous yells, you know I so well can imitate, and receiving the blow of his tomahawk upon my ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson

... and commendable closeness. The sights which he finds most attractive in famous seaports are the fish-markets and the natural-history museums. The themes on which he loves to dilate are the habits of the crocodile, the elephant, and the orang-utan, the modes of hunting and killing them, and, above all, the process of skinning and dissecting them. But he does not delight in slaughter for the sake of sport, nor regard the forest or the river as simply the habitat of uncouth monsters, nor make the account of his journeys ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... high standing, want of ribbing-up and ribbing home, with the tucked-up flank, always denote a worthless feeder. You must all have observed how difficult it is to bring such cattle into a state for killing. It will take a deal of cake and corn to make them ripe. A great many can never be made more than fresh; it is only a waste of time and ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie

... appointed day to the house of M. Juge in the Rue d'Enfer. No hard words passed between them, but while the gentleman was in the act of signing the receipt the coachman drew out one of his pistols and shot him through the head, killing him instantly. Collignon was at once arrested: he was tried and condemned to death, and expiated his crime on the scaffold on the 6th of December following. Since that event another system of restitution has been followed, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... a shell came through the arch of one of the casemates, killing two and wounding four men and, in consequence, a good many more of the ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... telling me news now. And it's the kind to make any old bachelor like me weep for envy. Lucky boy, Zeke! I guess he knows it, too, for he's got eyes in his head. About the money—why, you've a right to it. If Dan Hodges and his gang ain't rounded up quick, they'll be killing some good ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... or kaoit, appears to be used only for the purpose of breaking open shellfish, and killing seals and other animals by striking them on the head; for it has no sharpened edge to be used as a chopping or cutting instrument; the handle is from twelve to fifteen inches long, having one end scraped to a sharp point, and on each side at ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... thought," said Boyd, "and they're enjoying a mighty killing. There'll be huge feasts for days and days in their lodges. They're so intent on it, too, that there isn't one chance in a thousand ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler

... faced the setting sun, was an old "buffalo run," a narrow path, grass-grown now, but beaten deep into the earth by the hoofs of innumerable buffalo that long ago came down to the little stream to drink. It had been a favourite killing-place, too, for the Indians, as the numerous buffalo bones, whitened by the sun and frost of many ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... for it, Wedge—mark my words. All this stabbing and killing comes from too much work and no play. Jack's at his tools for ever—gets a dull boy—and then stabs and cuts about him for the sake of getting lively. Government should have playgrounds in every parish. They would save the expense in the rapid diminution of the standing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... "the killing time" were in the reign of James II.; Charles II. had died, to the sincere grief of most of his subjects, on February 2, 1685. "Lecherous and treacherous" as he was, he was humorous and good-humoured. The expected invasion of Scotland by Argyll, of England by Monmouth, did ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... past bearing to save me from such an easy thing as death! Now, here's me, a man, a big, strong man, and letting her live under that fearful oath, so worse than any death 'twould be for her, and lifting not a finger to save her. I cannot hear it, sir. It's killing me by inches! Black Jack's hand may not have been hurt so bad. Any hour he may be creeping up behind her! Any minute the awful revenge he swore to be taking may in some way fall on her, and I haven't even warned her father. ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter

... a curious feeling, almost innate in men, that though they are bound to speak truth, in speaking to a single person, they may lie as much as they please, provided they lie to two or more people at once. There is the same feeling about killing: most people would shrink from shooting one innocent man; but will fire a mitrailleuse contentedly ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... terrace, and half way up that to the upper; but, when my head was about on a level with the pavement of the walk along the upper terrace, I checked myself and moved a hairs-breadth at a time; for the rescue on which I had come was a delicate task and any quick movement might precipitate the leopard's killing- spring. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... "Monson" painted on one blade, and the name of some other town on the other. They are sometimes used for ornamental hat-trees, together with deers' horns, in front entries; but, after the experience which I shall relate, I trust that I shall have a better excuse for killing a moose than that I may hang my hat on his horns. We reached Monson, fifty miles from Bangor, and thirteen from the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... condemned to death as a demoniac but afterward saved from the stake by the Paris parliament and shut in a madhouse. He had been found covered with blood and shreds of flesh in a wood, shortly after the killing and rending of a boy by a pair of wolves. One wolf was seen to lope away unhurt. Surely a pretty hearthside tale, with a queer significance as to name and place; but I decided that the Providence gossips could ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... as a man and a pastor, he was severe. In season and out of season he was hot in argument against the devil and all his works. He was always fighting the battle with all manner of weapons. He would write letters of killing reproach to persons he had never known, and address them by ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... stones which were flying round him, Barnabas stood at the window dashing heavy iron masses, and killing two ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... depths of stupid malice, and malignant length of ear, they are capable of going. "Thursday, 13th April," this is Forger Konig's doom:—and, what is observable, next morning, with a crash audible through Nature, the Powder-Magazine flew aloft, killing several persons! [Supra, p. 203.] Had no hand, he, I ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... lots of his own countrymen; to which he replied, "Oh yes, but faix they must all take it as it comes." I have always observed that Southern Irishmen make excellent "Rebs," and have no sort of scruple in killing as many of their Northern brethren ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... Murphy, ye black-hearted, murthering villain," she shrieked. "I see ye skulking there behind the stable-door. Come out, I tell ye, and bad luck to you for killing my bird." ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... goes on with its usual dispiriting monotony. I pass hour after hour in my cell, meditating, hoping, despairing, following in fancy the voyage of my little barrel, tossed about at the mercy of the currents and whose chances of being picked up, I fear, are becoming fainter each day, and killing time by writing my diary, which ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... bronze (so called from a dealer named Corinthus; the metal was invented by Hannibal at the capture of Troy), and his huge silver vases, "a hundred of them, more or less," chased with the story of Daedalus shutting Niobe into the Trojan horse, and Cassandra killing her sons—"the dead children so good, you would think they were alive; for I sell my knowledge in matters of art for no money." Presently there follow the two wonderful ghost stories—that of the wer-wolf, told by one of the guests, and that ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... nearer, even to the houses of men and trampled on their gardens at night and ever came creeping nearer to their doors. At last the cattle were able to run no more, and one by one the Famine took them by their throats and dragged them down, and at night he scratched in the ground, killing even the roots of things, and came and peered in at the doorways and started back and peered in at the door again a little further, but yet was not bold enough to enter altogether, for fear that men should have water to throw over his ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... me to give it him; but the more he begged, the tighter I clasped it, crying and saying I would not give it to any one. My father, who was also in the house, ran up when he heard my screams, and in his stupefaction could not think how to prevent the venomous animal from killing me. Just then his eyes chanced to fall upon a pair of scissors; and so, while soothing and caressing me, he cut its tail and mouths off. Afterwards, when the great peril had been thus averted, he took the occurrence for a ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... there was a ball discharged from the gun, which entered his body and caused his death, because such is the usual and natural cause of such an effect. But you did not see the ball leave the gun, pass through the air, and enter the body of the slain; and your testimony to the fact of killing is, therefore, only inferential,—in other words, circumstantial. It is possible that no ball was in the gun; and we infer that there was, only because we cannot account for death on any other supposition." [Chief Justice Gibson, in Am. Law ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... altered. Generally she begins by being married already. Then her lover comes along to place her in awkward predicaments and put her to no end of inconvenience, very often only to make her realise that she prefers her husband after all. Or, on the other hand, the modern writer does not mind killing off, on the barest pretext, a husband who is perfectly sound in wind and limb and had never suffered from anything in his life until the lover appeared. The poor girl will tell you herself ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various

... in his chair, expecting each moment that you would work yourself into the additional frenzy that was necessary to make you pull the trigger of your weapon. Ah, you made him suffer tortures such as he never endured, before or since, even if you did not succeed in killing him. Then, slowly, and with deadly earnestness, you related the story of the months of wandering over Siberia searching for Yvonne, and finally you came to the climax, where you told of her discovery and her death, at your ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... of Boston began to jostle and tease some British regulars stationed in the town. Things went from bad to worse until some "boys and young fellows" began to throw snowballs and stones. Then the exasperated soldiers fired into the crowd, killing five and wounding half a dozen more. The day after the "massacre," a mass meeting was held in the town and Samuel Adams was sent to demand the withdrawal of the soldiers. The governor hesitated and tried to compromise. Finding Adams relentless, ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... are shot by Europeans, who are covetous of its striped skin, while at the same time the meat gives abundant provision to their native followers. Mr. Stanley thus describes the killing of two of these beautiful creatures on the mountainous hunting grounds of Kitangeh, near the east coast of Africa: "It was not until we had walked briskly over a long stretch of tawny grass, crushed by sheer force through a brambly jungle, and trampled down ...
— Harper's Young People, August 31, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... insensible on the ground, the master of the house refusing to give her up, though the maddened mob surged around it, swearing that if the "Arminian harlot"—as respectable a matron as lived in the city—were not delivered over to them, they would tear the house to pieces. The hope of plunder and of killing Rem Bischop himself drew them at last back to his mansion. It was thoroughly sacked; every portable article of value, linen, plate, money, furniture, was carried off, the pictures and objects of art destroyed, the house gutted from ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Gad, Perry," he burst out with a vicious twirl of his cane, "there are times when killing is a laudable act!" After this we walked in ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... citizens. Sixty took refuge in the church. The Calvinists forced such as could to ransom their lives, and slaughtered such as were too poor to do this. He was but six or seven years old when the Huguenot captain, the Sieur d'Assier, took La Roque, "killing the priests and burning the churches." He was aged twelve when Captain Vivant took Sarlat, suppressed the bishopric, and killed three of the canons and several of the citizens. At La Chapelle- Faucher in 1569 the heretics drove 260 peasants into the castle and massacred them all. ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... slaughtered for food. In fact, it was not the practice of the Kemish to eat any large animals, but they confined themselves to fish and small fowl for meats. Nevertheless, I urged upon Hotep the necessity of killing some of his cattle to provide food for his miserable and poorly-fed labourers. But he stubbornly refused to do so, saying his men would rather eat the flesh ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... by the ruin of one of the parties. When a man loses more money than he is able to pay he is confined and sold as a slave; being the most usual mode by which they become such. A generous winner will sometimes release his unfortunate adversary upon condition of his killing a horse ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... life by some deuise or other, The villaine is ore-wrought of all my monie. They say this towne is full of cosenage: As nimble Iuglers that deceiue the eie: Darke working Sorcerers that change the minde: Soule-killing Witches, that deforme the bodie: Disguised Cheaters, prating Mountebankes; And manie such like liberties of sinne: If it proue so, I will be gone the sooner: Ile to the Centaur to goe seeke this slaue, I greatly feare my ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... to hear that the vapour experiments have failed; but nothing could be better, as it seems to me, than your plan of enclosing a number of the ants with the seeds. The incidental results on the power of different vapours in killing seeds and stopping germination appear very curious, and as far as I ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... that happiness! How she would appreciate it, make the most of each least particle of it! But how was she to do it. Where was the path? She could not vision it. Her eyes showed her only the smudge of San Francisco, the smudge of Oakland, where men were breaking heads and killing one another, where babies were dying, born and unborn, and where women were weeping ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... corruption. But around the dark sin-spot, and because the sin-spot was there, divine love showered down, like the impalpable silver gathering on its object in the electrotype, embracing, surrounding, covering, killing the evil and bitter thing that threatened to destroy the works of God. Death was swallowed up in victory. The Son of God came into the world because sin was on it. He, the Holy One, took sin into his bosom, that he might quench it in his own embrace. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... hours; their wages were wretchedly low, their life was one of actual slavery. Insufficient nourishment, overwork, and the unsanitary and disgusting conditions in the mills, prematurely aged and debilitated them, and were a constant source of disease, killing off ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... mistake of doing both too much and too little—too much because they declared war against an innocent man, and roused the sympathies of the whole people in his behalf; too little, because they had not the nerve to complete their act by killing him outright and extirpating his party. Machiavelli, in one of his profoundest and most cynical critiques, remarks that few men know how to be thoroughly bad with honour to themselves. Their will is evil; but the grain of good in them—some fear of public opinion, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... off for a bullet to reach him," observed Stanley, "or I would try to rescue the giraffe by killing ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... you try to run I will thrust you through the neck as I would a cur. Listen how you snort. I shall soon have you; you are almost gone. You would spare me, would you? I could preach a sermon or dance a hornpipe while I am killing you. I will not break my sword against your coat of mail, but will wait until you fall from weakness and then.... Fight, ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... my life, by some device or other 95 The villain is o'er-raught of all my money. They say this town is full of cozenage; As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye, Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind. Soul-killing witches that deform the body, 100 Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, And many such-like liberties of sin: If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner. I'll to the Centaur, to go seek this slave: I greatly fear my money is ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... dwelt the four children of Lir, changed to swans by their step-mother until St Columba released them from enchantment. (See P. W. Joyce, Old Celtic Romances.) With this well-known romance is connected the wide-spread belief in Ireland of ill-fortune following the killing of a swan. Coal-seams, formerly extensively worked, and from an unknown [v.03 p.0282] period of antiquity, appear in the cliffs towards Fair Head, and the fisheries are important. The coast-scenery and the view from the hill of Knocklayd ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... nerves, a moment of self-control, an interval of waiting without an immediate result There is, indeed, a popular Italian proverb: aspettare e non venire e una cosa da morire (to wait for what does not come is a killing business). These impatient persons are like those busybodies who always make off when there is ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... and if I mistake not," said she, glancing at Winnie's neat morning attire, "the sooner the better, for I think those jewelled hands have not troubled themselves much about such things. I wonder that you have not been brought up to something beside killing time!" ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale

... and he that will be billing, Must not think cuckoldom deserves a killing. What if the gentle creature had been kissing, Nothing the good man married for was missing. Had he the secret of her birth-right known, 'Tis odds the faithful Annals would have shewn The wives of half his race ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... soldiers caught sight of the Black Colonel they halted in mute surprise, then shouted, as a dog barks on sight of a quarry, the killing instinct in man and beast finding tongue. It was instantly a gamble of the pursued and the pursuers, to escape or to capture, the keenest yet least noble game which can be played, that with a human life for the prize. The Black Colonel, a man with a bar-sinister, but a remarkable ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne

... Watch) were the first of the three regiments across the river Alma. Whilst ascending the height on the Russian side of the river, Sir Colin's horse was twice wounded, the second shot killing it; but he was soon mounted on another horse, leading his ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... attack this force. Twenty men were detailed under Captain Johnston for the purpose. At dawn on the morning of the 6th of December the Americans charged upon the Californian camp. The Californians promptly decamped after having delivered a volley which resulted in killing Johnston. The Americans at once pursued them hotly, became much scattered, and were turned upon by the fleeing enemy. The Americans were poorly mounted after their journey, their weapons were now empty, and they were unable to give mutual aid. The Spanish were ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... been committed, and where missionaries and converts were butchered in countless numbers during the Boxer reign. Until these expeditions have marched and had their revenge, there can be no treating. There must be more killing, more blood. That ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... that Doble had been drinking heavily. The man was morose and sullen. His color was high. Plainly he was primed for a killing if trouble came. ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... "the only men who did their duty on that day when the rioters invaded the Tower during our absence, killing with their own hands seven men who invaded the apartment of Lady De Courcy, and carrying her and her daughter safely through the crowd. Had all done their duty but a tenth part as well, the disgrace this rabble brought upon us would never have occurred, and the lives of my trusty ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... foot the elephant moved forward into the open; and without waiting for him to sink down Dermot slid to the ground. Old hunter that he was, the Major could never repress a feeling of pity when he looked on any harmless animal that he had shot; and he had long ago given up killing such except for food. He propped his rifle against a tree and, taking off his coat and rolling up his sleeves, drew his kukri and proceeded to disembowel and clean the kakur. While he was thus employed Badshah ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... the cause, and launching forth his anathema against the Stedinger as heretics and witches, encouraged all true believers to assist in their extermination. A large body of thieves and fanatics broke into their country in the year 1233, killing and burning wherever they went, and not sparing either women or children, the sick or the aged, in their rage. The Stedinger, however, rallied in great force, routed their invaders, and killed in battle their leader, Count Burckhardt of Oldenburg, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... killing numbers of their new-born or weakly children. They are said to suffocate them immediately after their birth, and then throw them into the river, or expose them in the streets—by far the most horrible proceeding of the two, on account of the number of swine and houseless dogs, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... other day, Baron von Buelow made an important announcement regarding the killing of the German missionaries in China that led to ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 5, February 3, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... trades of Rome are primitive and few in number. Those dismembered, disembowelled carcases, suspended in every variety of posture, denote the butchers' shops; not the pleasantest of sights at any time, least of all in Rome, where the custom of washing the meat after killing it seems never to have been introduced. Next door too is an open stable, crowded with mules and horses. Those black, mouldy loaves, exposed in a wire-work cage, to protect them from the clutches of the hungry street vagabonds, stand in front of the bakers, where the price of bread ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... often ensuing among the men as to the division of the booty. In this manner many soldiers succeeded, to my knowledge, in securing large sums of money; one in particular, a Grenadier of my regiment, after killing a sepoy, rifled the body, and, returning in great glee to where I was standing, showed me twenty gold mohurs, worth L32 sterling. It was a most reprehensible practice, but almost impossible entirely to prevent, for in the loose order of fighting which generally prevailed, the men did not ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... Esau; "but I was going to try and hit one, for I thought it a pity to waste a shot, and I can hit without killing; can't I, ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn

... occurred, but with more fortunate results. Colonel John H. King, now on the retired list, then a captain in the First Infantry, came to our camp in pursuit of a marauding band of hostile Indians, and I was enabled to put him also on the trail. He soon overtook them, and killing two without loss to himself, the band dispersed like a flock of quail and left him nothing to follow. He returned to our camp shortly after, and the few friendly Indian scouts he had with him held a grand pow-wow and dance over the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... be very sure—and now I come to think of it, I'm not very fond of killing things . . . so if there was just a chance ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... interrupted Dorothy, "you do not know the thing for which you are wishing; it is a torture worse than death; it is an ecstasy sweeter than heaven. It is killing me. I pity you, though you are a queen, if you have ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... offered its fellowship in exalting the furnace of misery. The lady herself—may we not suppose her at the last to have given way before the strengthening storm. Possibly to resist indefinitely might have menaced herself with ruin, whilst offering no benefit to her husband. And, again, though killing to the natural interests which accompany such a case, might not the lady herself be worn out, if no otherwise, by the killing nature of the contest? There is besides this dreadful fact, placed ten thousand ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... hand that struck him to death in the very centre of the scene of his long machinations, there in the Palais Royal, with his vote, dooming the king to death, still as it were on his lips, did not strike at random. There was no such bit of dramatic justice done in those dark days as the killing of that man in that place between the giving of that vote and the murder of the king that followed ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... Rights of misfortune are always sacred Something so seductive in popular enthusiasm Strike their imaginations by absurdities than by rational ideas Submit to events, that he might appear to command them Tendency to sell the skin of the bear before killing him That consolation which is always left to the discontented The boudoir was often stronger than the cabinet The wish and the reality were to him one and the same thing Those who are free from common prejudices acquire others To leave behind him no traces of his existence Treaties of peace no ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... "An Account of the Last Houres of the late renowned Oliver, Lord Protector" (1659). "Sedition Scourged." Heath's "Chronicles of the late Intestine War." Welwood's "Memoirs of Transactions in England." "Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, M.P., in the year 1640." Forster's "Statesmen of the Commonwealth." "Killing No Murther." Thurloe's "State Papers." Lord Clarendon's "State Papers." Tatham's "Aqua Triumphalis." "The Public Intelligencer." "Mercurius Politicus." "The Parliamentary Intelligencer." Lyon's "Personal History of Charles II." "The Boscobel Tracts, relating to the Escape of Charles ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... said Melicent, "and know that had you possessed a tithe of my beauty you might have held the heart of Demetrios." For it was in Melicent's mind to provoke the woman into killing ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al

... vaingloriously and at great speed, drove him in to the Cross Roads, he smashed the vehicle to kindling-wood in the amiable determination to follow his master into the Cross Roads store. On this occasion also he made himself respected, but unpopular, by killing, with one lightning stroke of a great fore hoof, a huge mongrel mastiff belonging to the storekeeper. The mastiff had sprung out at him wantonly, resenting his peculiar appearance. But the storekeeper had been so aggrieved that Jabe had ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... and flowers Ever sprung, as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring. Everything that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by, In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... bestowed his money every day more and more profusely, on observing that, contrary to his expectations, the king was taking care about the orphans, and discovering at the same time his repentance for killing their fathers, by his commiseration of those ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... of our countrymen had been impressed into the British navy, and more or less were found in almost every ship; most of these informed their respective captains, that being American citizens, they could not remain in the service of a nation, to aid them in killing their brethren; and in pulling down the flag of their native country. They declared firmly, that it was fighting against nature for a man to fight against his native land, the only land to which he owed a natural duty. Some noble British commanders admired their patriotic ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... of the royal residence, mounted his horse and rode hastily to the scene of danger. On the square he met some of the household troops surrounded by an infuriated mob, who were on the point of killing them. He threw himself among them, called some French guards who were near, and having rescued the household troops and dispersed their assailant, he hurried to the chateau. But the scene was not over. The crowd assembled again in the marble ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... lordship's consent, but believed he would see him; the earl had been long in the habit of using narcotics and stimulants, though not alcohol, he thought; he trusted Mr. Avory would give his sanction to the entire disuse of them, for they were killing him, body and soul. ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... all trace of antecedent life, it is necessary not only to shut out floating germs, but to kill all germs previously existing in the material we are dealing with. This killing of previous life is usually accomplished by heat; but it has been argued that strong heat will destroy not only the life but the potentiality for life, will break up the complex aggregate on which life depends, will deprive the incubating solution not only of life but of livelihood. There is ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge

... exclaimed, "what is this awful secret? I know that something is killing you. You mutter in sleep; you are sullen at times; and then you break out in this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... walk backward and forward the length of the room. "I wonder if I am sometimes. When I see that round, red, moon-faced pig driving around town with Mary, taking long horseback rides with her, and going to see her whenever he pleases, I don't know how I keep from killing him. He isn't fit to be in the same town with her. I know the man, went to school with him. He's a cad and a coward and a big fat fool. He has some money— that is, his father has—and a smearing of education, but he's coarse and common and not to be trusted. Van Orm was ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... "Locateli gave you—Lord!" The man was speechless. He put his hand to his forehead several times, and then gazed at his wife's hair. She fell to sobbing. "Frank," she wailed, "Frank! I've come back to you because I couldn't stand it any longer—it was killing me. Can't you see it? Can't you believe me? No woman, no American girl can go through that life and come out of it—happy. It made me sick, Frank, but I did not like to tell you. And now, after I've thrown up a career simply ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... be adjudged manslaughter, and not murder. In the following verse, another case of personal injury is stated, for which the injurer is to pay a sum of money; and yet our translators employ the same phraseology in both places! One, an instance of deliberate, wanton, killing by piecemeal; the other, an accidental, and comparatively slight injury—of the inflicter, in both cases, they say the same thing! Now, just the discrimination to be looked for where GOD legislates, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... are put on boats, Baas," the dwarf answered. "The boats should be hidden yonder," and he pointed to some thick reeds. "There too they 'weed the corn,' killing out the weakly ones, that they may not be burdened with them. Let ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... bowls an awkward ball That in the queerest manner swerves, And this delivery of them all Takes most elastic from my nerves: It comes, and all along my spine A sense of desolation creeps; Till now the mastery is mine, But—what a killing length he keeps! ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale

... them even as I am; Pallas Minerva bids me be afraid of no man, and even though one of them escape, their steeds shall not take both back again. I say further, and lay my saying to your heart—if Minerva sees fit to vouchsafe me the glory of killing both, stay your horses here and make the reins fast to the rim of the chariot; then be sure you spring Aeneas' horses and drive them from the Trojan to the Achaean ranks. They are of the stock that great Jove gave to Tros in payment for ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... the Vaidik Ahi was three-headed, only that one of Zohak's heads has now become human. Zohak has killed Jemshid of the Peshdadian dynasty: Feridun now conquers Zohak on the banks of the Tigris. He then strikes him down with his cow-headed mace, and is on the point of killing him, when, as Firdusi says, a supernatural voice whispered ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... conditions are quite different when the attack is delivered on the surface of the ground. Gradually absorbed by the soil, the excess of liquid disappears, leaving the colonists free. In my dishes, it collects indefinitely, killing the inhabitants when it dries up into a ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... bands will be broken as the iron chains were by the demoniac. But put upon them the silken leash of love, and you may lead them where you will. You cannot grow grapes on an iceberg, and you cannot get works of righteousness out of a man that has a dread of God at the back of his heart, killing all its joy. But let the spring sunshine come, and then all the frost-bound earth opens and softens, and the tender green spikelets push themselves up through the brown soil, and in due time come 'the blade, and the ear, and the full corn ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... discovered an hippopotamus higher up the stream, and beg that we will go out at once and assist in killing it." ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... getting loose in the drawing-room when there's visitors present, or not a pound of fresh meat in the house, and the Bishop taking it into his head to drive over ten miles to lunch! And Bridgie was for going out and killing a chicken, and engaging him in conversation while it was cooked, but mother says, 'No, the man's hungry! Bring lunch in the same as if we were alone, and leave the rest to me.' And when he had asked the blessing she says, smiling, 'It's nothing but ham and eggs I've got to offer ye, Bishop, ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the preacher, 'or rather let me call you my children, such is my age confronted with yours, for the most part,— my children, then, and my brethren (for here are both), believe me, killing is forbidden.'" ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor

... Claire, ashamed of himself, and anxious too. His inflammable temper had rather out-flamed itself in its last-recorded performance, and he had begun to suspect that it had been responsible for some, though by no means all, of his troubles. The killing of Haig's bull, he now realized, was a foolish and indefensible act, which could be traced easily to him because of the bull that was gored; and he must prepare to account to Haig for it. And so, knowing that he would again be in the wrong, as in the affair at the post-office, ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... doubtless, contrived this from the aversion natural to Englishmen of killing an enemy in cold blood; and because they foresaw that there would ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... gently, and then turning her eyes full on the young Baronet, she added, "I like to hear that you will pass your days sometimes without shooting the birds and killing the fish; it can hurt nobody for you to write." And she smiled that dreamy pensive smile, of hers that was so infinitely bewitching. "You must show me all your ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... of Charles Hugo, and his sentence to six months' imprisonment, for simply writing a strong Editorial in the Evenement in condemnation of Legal Killing, is making a profound sensation here. I think it will hasten the downfall both of the Guillotine and the "party of Order" which thus assumes the championship of that venerated institution. The Times' Paris correspondent, ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... looking, smelling, frigging, and finger-stinking we lay till devilish hungry. Then we got up, and after going to a chop-house and having food, I put her into a cab to go home. I enjoyed myself much that night, a fresh cunt is always charming, and there is such delight in killing modesty in a woman who has never been fucked before; the struggle to get her to open her thighs to let you see her cunt is ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... to the best clubs; he's a persona grata at more courts than one, and an intimate friend of King Leopold of Belgium. His immense wealth, or part of it, comes from the rubber industry—motor tires and so forth. And he's mad after big game. That's his pleasure—killing. He's a killer. That is the best description of the man. The lust of blood is in him, and the astounding thing, to my mind, is that he is not a murderer. He has killed two men in duels, and they say that it is a sight to see him fighting. ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... with indifference—cold, calm, killing indifference! Yet kind, heavenly kind even in her coldness! Her cheerful eye never turns from me, nor ever seeks me. To her I am a statue—Would I were! Why does she not hate me? Openly and absolutely hate me!—And could I wish ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... yearling heifer. An old bull or cow they disdained, and though they occasionally took a young calf or colt, it was quite clear that veal or horseflesh was not their favorite diet. It was also known that they were not fond of mutton, although they often amused themselves by killing sheep. One night in November, 1893, Blanca and the yellow wolf killed two hundred and fifty sheep, apparently for the fun of it, and did not eat an ounce ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton

... mostly about a bull fighter—he calls him a Toreador. You ought to hear him when we're out back of the barn some morning. He not only sings, but he acts it, too. He sticks the pitchfork into the straw stack, like as if it's a bull, and makes you believe he's killing it ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... and he let drive twice in quick succession, firing into two groups of the beasts, and killing two and wounding several others. Then Dick fired, bringing down another. Tom and Sam also discharged their pieces, and added three others to ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield

... million pounds, you have killed about eight hundred Yankees. They have cost you ten thousand pounds a head. Meanwhile, at least a hundred thousand children have been born in America. There are the factors in your problem. How much time and money will be required for the job of killing ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... see that the motive is sufficient," said another. "What motive had he for killing Ned Wilson? Here he wur in Parliament, and making a name for hissen. Is it likely that for a bit of spite he'd kill a chap in that way? Besides, he's fair clever, is Stepaside. Would he be such a fooil as to kill him wi' a knife as was ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... the life-blood of national prosperity, upon which war depends; and as such is national in its employment, and only in ownership private. To stop such circulation is to sap national prosperity; and to sap prosperity, upon which war depends for its energy, is a measure as truly military as is killing the men whose arms maintain war in the field. Prohibition of commerce is enforced at will where an enemy's army holds a territory; if permitted, it is because it inures to the benefit of the conqueror, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... together. If it had been any use I should have prayed—I should have prayed that something might befall him. I should have prayed that he might sink out of my sight and leave me alone. I knew no way of killing him there, but I did, I did kill him ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... tumbled quite other words, about farming, Holly, and the Downs. Talking fast, he waited for her to come back to Fleur. But she did not. Nor did his father mention her, though of course he, too, must know. What deprivation, and killing of reality was in his silence about Fleur—when he was so full of her; when his mother was so full of Jon, and his father so full of his mother! And so the trio spent ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... fields, albeit they belonged to friends and allies. But they were only passing through,[1738] while the Armagnacs were for ever raiding, eternally stealing all they could lay hands on, setting fire to barns and churches, killing women and children, ravishing maids and nuns, hanging men by the thumbs. In 1420, like devils let loose, they descended upon the village of Champigny and burned at once oats, wheat, sheep, cows, oxen, women and children. Likewise did they and worse still at Croissy.[1739] ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... what is sense? Genius is a peculiar native aptitude, or tendency, to any one calling or pursuit over all others. A man may have a genius for governing, for killing, or for curing the greatest number of men, and in the best possible manner: a man may have a genius for the fiddle, or his mission may be for the tight-rope, or the Jew's harp; or it may be a natural turn for seeking, and finding, and teaching truth, and ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... the creature was discovered, the insatiable Anglo-Saxon delight in killing birds, from the majestic eagle to the contemptible sparrow, displayed itself in its full frenzy. The crew ran about the decks, the passengers rushed into their cabins, eager to seize the first gun and to have the first shot. An old quarter-master of the ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... technically easy and have done away with the pain caused directly by the incisions; but on the other hand, these marvelous effects of pain-killing drugs have encouraged indiscriminate and unnecessary operations to such an extent that at least nine-tenths of all the surgical operations performed today are uncalled for. In most instances these ill-advised ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... daily in the outskirts of the town. There was a fight on the very first day, when our men killed, as before hinted, a Rebel surgeon, which was oddly metamorphosed in the Southern newspapers into their killing one of ours, which certainly never happened. Every day, after this, they appeared in small mounted squads in the neighborhood, and exchanged shots with our pickets, to which the gunboats would contribute their louder share, their ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... an exhaust. Instead, it was being dragged rapidly away from the Connie cruiser by the pull of the sun. At least they had hit it in time to prevent launching of the atomic guided missiles. Or, he thought, perhaps the enemy had never intended using them. The principal effect, besides killing the Planeteers, would have been to drive the asteroid into the sun at an ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage

... Goldsmith would express it. Intellectually it is nothing—a sort of existent nonentity, a moral void on which a name would be utterly thrown away. Well, I could take these two animals, Chips and Puss, put them in here (alive, too, for there is a killing apparatus in the instrument which will effectually do away with the cruel process of slaughtering, and with its accompanying nuisances of slaughter-houses and butchers)— put them in here, I say, and in twenty minutes they would be ground up ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... retorted Boggs. "It's the contrast that's killing me. The only women who would look at me to-day are mercenary ones that wouldn't care if I was black as Othello or big as George IV. Why, I could show you a trunkful of letters, written me by the finest women in this country, when I was at my best. They breathe but one thing—love, love, love! ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... this report from Dublin; but perhaps some more learned authority can explain it: 'Dublin, April 9, 1679.—This morning the Lord Lieutenant signed a warrant for the pardon of Lawry, a Scotch man, minister in the county of Fermanagh, and his five servants, for killing five notorious Tories in that countrey, wounding two others to death, as is believed, and takeing the eighth. The parson killed three of them with his own hand; and while another of the Tories was going to draw the trigger of his gun to shoot him, his hand was cut off by one of the parson's servants.' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various

... kind of tower," observed Father Brown, "when it takes to killing people, it always kills people who ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... Anchises, speaking in the midst of Troy's flames, or see Ulysses, in the fulness of all Calypso's delights, bewail his absence from barren and beggarly Ithaca. Anger, the Stoics said, was a short madness; let but Sophocles bring you Ajax on a stage, killing or whipping sheep and oxen, thinking them the army of Greeks, with their chieftains Agamemnon and Menelaus; and tell me, if you have not a more familiar insight into anger, than finding in the schoolmen his genus and difference? See whether wisdom and temperance in Ulysses and Diomedes, valour ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... painting themselves with red ochre, which they lay thickly over their heads, after scraping off the hair with a flint-knife. They swim and dive like ducks, and run up trees like monkeys. Though affectionate to their children, they are ruthless to the stranger, killing every one who happens to be cast away on their inhospitable shores. They have been accused of cannibalism, but this is open to doubt. The bodies of those they have killed have been found dreadfully mutilated, almost pounded to a jelly, but ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... journey through the mountains. The difficulties and dangers of the route. A council held with another band of the Shoshonees, of whom some account is given. They are reduced to the necessity of killing their horses for food. Captain Clarke with a small party precedes the main body in quest of food, and is hospitably received by the Pierced-nose Indians. Arrival of the main body amongst this tribe, with whom a council is held. They resolve to perform the remainder of their journey in canoes. ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... fact still the nimbler of the two. She made a mocking face at him. Panawe seemed lost in quiet thoughts. The rock was sound, and did not crumble under their weight. The heat of Branchspell, however, was by this time almost killing, the radiance was shocking in its white intensity, and Maskull's ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... in its great vat the brilliant southern stripling, after having burnt him with all its vitriol, rolled him in all its mud, finished by sending him back in this state of wreckage, stupefied and paralyzed—killing his father with sorrow, and forcing his mother to sell her all, and live as a sort of char-woman in the better-class houses of her own country-side. Lucky it was that just then, when this broken piece of humanity, discharged from all the hospitals of ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... a reason once, why men should be as they are. Nature is not gentle and if nature is left to herself, the timid do not survive. But if bloodlust was once a virtue, it is no longer a virtue, and if men will end up killing each other off, let us not also ...
— Step IV • Rosel George Brown

... an arrow from the quiver, and tried the head with the assaying liquid. It proved to be a hunting-shaft; and, adjusting it to the string, he sent it through the body of a white wolf, killing it instantly. He took up the shaft again, and wiping the feather, shot another, and another, until the bodies of five or six of these animals ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... terribly long fit of sickness yesterday, which makes the world rather extra gloomy to-day, and I have an insanely strong wish to finish my accursed book, such corrections every page has required as I never saw before. It is so weariful, killing the whole afternoon, after 12 o'clock doing nothing whatever. But I will grumble no more. So farewell, we shall meet in ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... completely robbed it of every thing valuable. Accordingly he loaded a train of waggons with his booty, took with him thirty of the magistrates as hostages, with other wealthy citizens, and marching in good order against Haultepenne, completely routed him, killing a number variously estimated at from five hundred to two thousand, and effected his retreat, desperately wounded in the thigh, but triumphant, and laden with the spoils to Venlo on the Meuse, of which city he ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... l. 964, 'Tis my mother comes.]—The reaction has already begun in Orestes. In the excitement and danger of killing his enemy he has shown coolness and courage, but now a work lies before him vastly more horrible, a little more treacherous, and with no element of daring to redeem it. Electra, on the other hand, has done nothing yet; she ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides

... fleshly one, wiping the dusty sweat from his forehead, and shaking it unceremoniously from his finger-tips. "Word comes that our leaders are taken. Mahatma Ghandi, also. The people are burning and looting; Bank-ghar,[29] Town Hall-ghar; killing many Sahibs and one Mem-sahib. Hai! hai! Now there will be hartal again; Committee ki raj. No food; no work. Hai! hai![30] ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... to grasp at the idea of Henry Waters. He would suffer himself to be taken to Virginia in his brother's stead, where he would make his identity known and establish an alibi; but there was danger of the revengeful Martin killing his prisoner before he reached Virginia, and ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick



Words linked to "Killing" :   dispatch, killing zone, fatality, suicide, net, human death, termination, honor killing, violent death, drive-by killing, putting to death, net profit, sidesplitting, race murder, humourous, cleanup, homicide, lucre, decapitation, coup de grace, self-destruction, death, self-annihilation, mercy killing, electrocution, genocide, sacrifice



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