Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Phalanx   Listen
noun
Phalanx  n.  (pl. phalanxes, L. phalanges)  
1.
(Gr. Antiq.) A body of heavy-armed infantry formed in ranks and files close and deep. There were several different arrangements, the phalanx varying in depth from four to twenty-five or more ranks of men. "In cubic phalanx firm advanced." "The Grecian phalanx, moveless as a tower."
2.
Any body of troops or men formed in close array, or any combination of people distinguished for firmness and solidity of a union. "At present they formed a united phalanx." "The sheep recumbent, and the sheep that grazed, All huddling into phalanx, stood and gazed."
3.
A Fourierite community; a phalanstery.
4.
(Anat.) One of the digital bones of the hand or foot, beyond the metacarpus or metatarsus; an internode.
5.
(Bot.) A group or bundle of stamens, as in polyadelphous flowers.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Phalanx" Quotes from Famous Books



... or Cayuga, but that the bush beyond should be traversed with caution. So I called in the flanking rangers, replacing them with Oneidas, and, sending the balance of the band forward on a trot, waited five minutes, then started on with a solid phalanx of riflemen behind ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... length. The tibia and fibula were distinct. In the forefoot all the digits except the pollex, or first, were well developed. The third digit is the largest, and its close resemblance to that of the horse is clearly marked. The terminal phalanx, or coffin-bone, has a shallow median bone in front, as in many species of this group in the later tertiary. The fourth digit exceeds the second in size, and the second is much the shortest of all. Its metacarpal bone is considerably ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... of the executive, and the last on the list was John Simcoe Saunders, who was advocate-general and held three or four commissionerships besides. All these men were so solidly entrenched in their positions that it seemed impossible they should ever be disturbed. They formed a solid phalanx opposed to all reform, and they were supported by the governor, Sir Archibald Campbell, most of whose life had been spent in India and who, however well fitted to govern Hindoos, was hardly the man to give laws to white men who ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... the allied Hellenes in Boeotia, and, the gods helping, we cannot fail. Lycon and I will contrive to separate the Athenians and Spartans from their other allies, to force them to give battle, and at the crisis cause the divisions under our personal commands to retire, breaking the phalanx and making ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... Prince of Orange, who was then a French prince, head of the principality of Orange. He served under the King of France in the war with Spain. He was a frank and loyal soldier, yet firmly attached to the faith of his fathers. He belonged to the old Huguenot phalanx, who, as the Duke de Mayenne said, "were always ready for death, from father to son." After the wars were over, he gave up the sword for the plough. His chateau was in ruins, and he had to live in a very humble way until his fortunes were restored. He used to say that his ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... does not present himself before us as an isolated witness, but is backed by a whole phalanx of past and contemporaneous authority. All this our author ignores. He forecloses all investigation by denouncing, as usual, the uncritical character of the fathers; and Irenaeus is not even allowed to ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... confusion. But his boat struck that of the enemy with such force as to recoil; and Trippe, who had sprung into the enemy's rigging, found himself left with but nine of his people, to confront nearly twoscore Tripolitans. The Americans formed in a solid phalanx, and held their ground bravely. Again the two commanders singled each other out, and a fierce combat ensued. The Turk was armed with a cutlass, while Trippe fought with a short boarding-pike. They fought ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... way for liberty!" he cried, Make way for liberty, and died. In arms the Austrian phalanx stood, A living wall, a human wood,— A wall, where every conscious stone Seemed to its kindred thousands grown. A rampart all assaults to bear, Till time to dust their frames should wear; So still, so dense the Austrians stood, A ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... a solid phalanx of men which had collected around the moveless bodies as swiftly as mercury sinks through water. Yet none of them touched either Donnegan or George. And then the solid group dissolved at one side. It was the moan of a woman which had scattered it, and a yellow-haired girl slipped through ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... his country has ever produced, but whose sudden removal has, we find, created an impression far beyond the circle of even his occasional hearers, that the spirit which has passed away was one of the high cast which nature rarely produces, and that the consequent blank created in the existing phalanx of intellect is one which cannot be filled up. Comparatively little as the deceased was known beyond his own immediate walk of duty or circle of acquaintanceship, it is yet felt by thousands, of whom the greater part knew ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... extent was this felt that the three girls were spoken of by the wits of the town as the "four-and-twenty Miss Bells." They adored Beatrice, and bore down upon her now in a neat phalanx. ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... the figures of the marshall'd hosts, Described the motions, and explain'd the use Of the deep column, and the lengthened line, The square, the crescent, and the phalanx firm, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... battle on their own ground, these desperate rebels would have fought till none could stand, and by sheer ferocious numbers would have pulled down any trained troops that the city could have sent against them, whether they had advanced in phalanx or what formation you will. For it must be remembered they were far removed from cowards, being Atlantean all, just as were those within the city, and were, moreover, spurred to extraordinary savageness and desperation by the oppression ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... glances with Julia. " However," she said calmly, "I have consulted Mr. Osmond and Dr. Short; but have not relied on them alone. I have taken her to Sir William Best. And to Dr. Chalmers. And to Dr. Kenyon." And she felt invulnerable behind her phalanx ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... the mind adapts itself, logic is maimed; there is a conflict of ideas, the inspiration of science, truncated thoughts. Again we talk of the head of the mob, of the foot of the altar or the throne, of the heart of the riot, of the body of an army, of a phalanx, of trampling under ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... George the First's time were prudently anxious to diminish the phalanx of opposition. The Tory nobility, depending for their reflected lustre upon the sunshine of a court, had for some time been gradually reconciling themselves to the new dynasty. But the wealthy country gentlemen of England, a rank which retained, with much of ancient ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... old seats of power and riches to improve their condition. They are warlike, fierce, implacable. They fear not death, and are urged onward by the lust of rapine and military zeal. The old legions, which penetrated the Macedonian phalanx and withstood the Gauls, cannot resist the shock of their undisciplined armies; for martial glory has fled, and the people prefer their pleasures to the empire. Great emperors are raised up, but they are unequal to the task of preserving the crumbling ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... the starboard. Yes, there they were—a phalanx of flowers in the dusk. He broke into wild curses at them, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... the gallant self-devotion of Arnold Struthan of Winkelried, at the battle of Sempach [9th July, 1386], who broke the Austrian phalanx by rushing on their lances, grasping as many of them as he could reach, and concentrating them upon his breast. The confederates rushed forward through the gap thus opened by the sacrifice of their comrade, broke and cut down their enemy's ranks, and soon became the masters ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... newly-arrived Grecian general evinced at once such military superiority, that the Carthaginians gave him the supreme command. He marshaled the army, accordingly, for battle. He had a hundred elephants in the van. They were trained to rush forward and trample down the enemy. He had the Greek phalanx in the center, which was a close, compact body of many thousand troops, bristling with long, iron-pointed spears, with which the men pressed forward, bearing every thing before them. Regulus was, in a word, ready to meet Carthaginians, but he was ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... disregard even of the law of God and man." Had he courage enough for this? And if the courage were there, was he high enough and powerful enough to carry out such a purpose? Could he beat down the Mrs. Stantiloups? And, indeed, could he beat down the Bishop and the Bishop's phalanx;—for he knew that the Bishop and the Bishop's phalanx would be against him? They could not touch him in his living, because Mr. Peacocke would not be concerned in the services of the church; but would not his school melt away to nothing in his hands, if he were to attempt ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

... he wrote to Miss More, 'by their numbers form a phalanx not easily impressible, and their habits of life are as armour of proof which renders them not easily vulnerable. Neither the rude club of a boisterous Reformer nor the pointed, delicate weapons of the authoress before me can overthrow ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... "Until we can get iron weapons and firearms into full production, I suggest the Macedonian phalanx for their infantry. They have the horse, but evidently the wheel has gone out of use. We'll introduce the chariot and also heavy carts to speed up logistics. We'll bring in the stirruped saddle, too. I have available for study, works on every cavalry leader from Tamerlane ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... he found plenty of employment for his sunny ways in placating his disappointed colleagues. In time there were consolation prizes for all, for this one a judgeship, for that one a lieutenant-governorship, for the next a life seat in the senate; the phalanx of fighting second-raters who had done valuable work in opposition, reinforcing and buttressing the work of the front benches disappeared gradually from parliament. And with those he chose he too ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe

... disproportion: and whoe'er Turn with mild sorrow from the Victor's car And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse On that blest triumph, when the Patriot Sage[118:1] Called the red lightnings from the o'er-rushing cloud 235 And dashed the beauteous terrors on the earth Smiling majestic. Such a phalanx ne'er Measured firm paces to the calming sound Of Spartan flute! These on the fated day, When, stung to rage by Pity, eloquent men 240 Have roused with pealing voice the unnumbered tribes That toil and groan and bleed, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... harder sex aforesaid, for obvious reasons, delighted just at present to humour. George, however, in no wise shared his aunt's expansiveness in this direction, if only that it meant that Lilith was promptly surrounded by an adoring phalanx, even as on the deck of ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... fly the Saxons set up a triumphant shout, and breaking up their solid phalanx rushed after them in complete disorder. In vain Algar, Osgot, Toley, Eldred, and the other leaders shouted to them to stand firm. Weary of their long inactivity, and convinced that the Danes were routed, the Saxons pursued them across the plain. Suddenly the Danish ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... ranges began to lose semblance and symmetry in the dusk, and the river gloomed benighted in the vague circuit of its course, and a lonely star slipped into the sky, darkening, too, till, rank after rank, and phalanx after phalanx, all the splendid armament of night had mustered, with that great, glamourous guidon in the midst—small wonder that the ignorant mountaineer looked up at the unaccustomed thing to mark it there, and fear ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... compactness of this party, the beauty of the ladies, and the merry peals of laughter which proceeded from them, telling of a wit and vivacity beyond the ordinary, sapped the resolution which had borne me well hitherto. I felt that to attack such a phalanx, even with a king's good will, was beyond the daring of a Crillon, and I looked round to see whether I could not amuse myself in ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... Greek, who fled from the Peloponnesus to Rome a little before the great Carthaginian war, terminated by Scipio Africanus, has left a most interesting comparison between the two forms of tactical arrangement: and, waiving the details, the upshot is this—that the phalanx was a holiday arrangement, a tournament arrangement, with respect to which you must suppose an excess of luck if it could be made available, unless by mutual consent, under a known possibility of transferring the field of battle to some smooth bowling-green in the neighbourhood. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... masses gather fresh and fresh accession as they move on, like revolutionary armies marching up to battle. Looking overhead, there seems a field-day in heaven; great bodies of artillery in motion, forming themselves into solid phalanx, and giving more and more dreadful notes of preparation. Volleys tell when divisions join, and the light that announces them is as if the adamantine arch were riven, disclosing dread splendors unspeakable Most grand, most beautiful storm! New music—that of the delicious rain, and in such ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... raging phalanx crowded the gap in the wall, throwing continually, howling, and exhorting one ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... then rose the deadly reek of war; The dusky ranks were thinned; the chieftain slain by young Dunbar, Rolled headlong and their phalanx broke, but formed as soon as broke, And with a yell the furies that avenge man's ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... ball as it arched in the air and spun his way. Out of the corners of his eyes he saw team-mates forming a phalanx in front. Then he heard Frank Meade's voice off to ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... motion to table the appointment of a harmony committee the vote stood 226 to 155. A motion to adjourn also failed by 166 to 210. These results indicated that neither tricks nor disorder could shake the Robinson phalanx, and after the call to select a nominee for governor had begun, Augustus Schell, John Kelly, William Dorsheimer, and other Tammany leaders rose in their places. "Under no circumstances will the Democracy of New York support the nomination of Lucius Robinson," said Schell; ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... thirteen years later. Certainly the fact that Tilley, from that time until the close of his public career, had always the support of the temperance societies, gave him a strength which he hardly would have obtained otherwise, and rallied around him a phalanx of friends, who, for fidelity to his interests and zeal for his political advancement, could hardly ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... the subject of human deterioration; and I must take the liberty to remark, that it augurs a very considerable degree of presumption in any individual, to set himself up against the authority of so many great men, as may be marshalled in metaphysical phalanx under the opposite banners of the controversy; such as Aristotle, Plato, the scholiast on Aristophanes, St Chrysostom, St Jerome, St Athanasius, Orpheus, Pindar, Simonides, Gronovius, Hemsterhusius, Longinus, Sir Isaac Newton, Thomas ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... crowns and prayers; crowns for anticipated victories, prayers that he would come and win them. Homage so delicate was not to be disdained. Nero set forth, an army at his heels; a legion of claquers, a phalanx of musicians, cohorts of comedians, and with these for retinue, through sacred groves that Homer knew, through intervales which Hesiod sang, through a year of festivals he wandered, always victorious. It was he who conquered at Olympia; ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... but in 'L'Attaque du Moulin,' where all should be colour and variety, the dull and featureless orchestration is a serious blot. 'Messidor' (1897) and 'L'Ouragan' (1901) had very much the same reception as the composer's earlier operas. The compact little phalanx of his admirers greeted them with enthusiasm, but the general public remained cold. 'Messidor,' written to a prose libretto by Zola, is a curious mixture of socialism and symbolism. The foundation of the plot is a ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... the enclosed extract from my letter of May the 27th, 1786, will, I fear, have very mischievous effects. It will tend to draw on the Count de Vergennes the formidable phalanx of the Farms; to prevent his committing himself to me in any conversation which he does not mean for the public papers; to inspire the same diffidence into all other ministers, with whom I might have to transact business; to defeat the little ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... headed by the two bulls before noticed, dashed straight towards us at full gallop. So simultaneous was the onset that it resembled a sudden charge of cavalry, and the ground vibrated beneath their heavy hoofs. Their tails were thrown high above their backs, and the mad and overpowering phalanx of heads and horns came rushing forward as though to sweep us at once from the face ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... all ages and nations, enlightened or ignorant, savage or civilized, should have so uniformly led to the belief in good and evil spirits wandering at large on the earth, not subject to the laws of matter, save in the sensation of sight and hearing. The creditable phalanx of names of distinguished persons who had placed their veracity on the side of believers, as having themselves been visited by the inhabitants of the other world, was opposed by his own experience; ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... the capital that winter, arriving with the phalanx of legislators in January, and establishing themselves in a furnished house opportunely vacated by the Bosworths, who were taking the Mediterranean trip. Bassett had been careful to announce to the people of Fraserville that the removal was only temporary, and that he and his family would return ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... sense of the word an arduous training, for the first regiment of Guards being considered all the world over as the crack corps of the German army, and as the embodiment of military perfection in every sense of the word, its officers, realizing that it is, so to speak, the star phalanx of Germany, are engaged, morning, noon and night, in maintaining it at its proper standard, and there are no officers anywhere in Europe who are so hard worked as those of the first regiment of Prussian Guards;—that regiment which ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... name outworn. Spain was now in a new world. Crusades against the unbeliever, even those more popular ones which combined the saving of souls with the getting of gold, were long out of fashion. Lastly, the entire ecclesiastical body—the formidable phalanx of the endowed, with their patrons dependents, and dupes—though they were too dull to perceive and too dense to feel the shafts aimed at obscurantism and superstition, had something more than a suspicion that this book called Don Quixote was a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... self except, Thrice school'd in all events of human life,) None rivall'd ever in the just array 670 Of horse and man to battle. Fifty ships Black-prowed, had borne them to the distant war. Ajax from Salamis twelve vessels brought, And where the Athenian band in phalanx stood Marshall'd compact, there station'd he his powers. 675 The men of Argos and Tyrintha next, And of Hermione, that stands retired With Asine, within her spacious bay; Of Epidaurus, crown'd with purple vines, And of Troezena, with the Achaian youth 680 Of sea-begirt ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... a galloping steed, the yellow flood rolls onward, as if impelled by the breath of a demon, carrying terror and desolation in its track. Woe to the living thing unable to flee before its watery phalanx! ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... hoods—fleshless skulls; tinted a pale green! Jutting jawbones, cavernous cheeks, lipless mouths that grinned mirthlessly—his eyes froze to them and a scream formed within him that he could not utter. Hands appeared from within the flowing sleeves, and they were skeleton hands, each phalanx clearly marked. They moved, that was the worst of it, the hands moved; and deep in the shadowed eye-pits of the skulls blue light glowed in living eyes that peered at ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat

... Government monopoly of the sale of opium) by the aid of his army; but as he never nears the greater portion of his dominions, there must be some nice pickings off that revenue by minor satraps before it reaches his sacred hands. There is quite a phalanx of under-strappers of State in this despotism. For instance, at Tangier there is a Bacha or Governor, a Caliph or Vice-Governor, a Nadheer or Administrator of the Mosques, a Mohtasseb or Administrator of the Markets, and a Moul-el-Dhoor or Chief of the Night Police. ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... the last phalanx. This thing on the ironing board was Horatius at the bridge holding in check the hordes of false Tarquin. Everything gone but this. Not even a pair of pants or a smoking coat. Not a blooming thing left but this—a full-dress suit beginning to ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... engagement only lasted for less than an hour, it was hot and spirited throughout, and the valiant phalanx of 70 men who held their own under such trying circumstances, in the face of fully 800 veteran soldiers, fully deserve the greatest honor and credit that can be given by the Canadian people, and are well worthy of having their ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... motto for that table, but do your duty like men, and you'll get your money's worth of art in every sense of the word," said the irrepressible Jo, as the devoted phalanx ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... briskly, overtakes slower walkers ahead, and the crowd allows no space to get past them, one should watch for a chance to slip through a gap in the phalanx, rather than "elbow through." If no chance seems likely to occur, and haste is imperative, a polite man has no recourse but to step outside the curb and walk rapidly ahead, returning to the sidewalk a few paces in advance. A lady similarly ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... have the Pyrrhic dance as yet; Where is our Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons why forget The nobler ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... But it is plainly impossible that we should all attain to equality on the level of the best of us. The history of civilization shows us that the human race has by no means marched on in a solid and even phalanx. It has had its advance-guard, its rear-guard, and its stragglers. It presents us the same picture today; for it embraces every grade, from the most civilized nations down to the lowest surviving types of barbarians. Furthermore, if we analyze the society of ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner

... like a doomed man at the stake, Jim watched the flaming phalanx advance. And now he saw what they really were; saw that his first, fantastic guess ...
— Spawn of the Comet • Harold Thompson Rich

... as to the scale and significance of the German preparations. Indeed, in those first few hours of the bombardment of the northern sector of the salient, there was repeated on this Western Front the phalanx concentration which Von Mackensen had used against the Russians during the previous summer, when thousands of guns, arrayed against a comparatively narrow area, burst and blazed a way through it, or, more accurately ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... Telamon, tower of strength to the Achaeans, broke a phalanx of the Trojans, and came to the assistance of his comrades by killing Acamas son of Eussorus, the best man among the Thracians, being both brave and of great stature. The spear struck the projecting peak of his helmet: its bronze point ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... Macedon is still to Greece what Russia, before Peter the Great, was to Europe—a half-unknown and barbarous land, full of latent energy and power, and waiting for the rise of a master mind to discern its embryo greatness and turn its peasants into the unconquerable phalanx. Alexander must arise to carry forth with his victorious arms the seeds of Greek civilization over the Eastern world. Aristotle must arise to gather up in one boundless mind the vast results of Greek philosophy, and found an empire vaster ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... dance as yet,[199] Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gave— Think ye he ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... And the phalanx, armed with scythes, bill-hooks, axes, hoes, and guns, reunited in the square before the church. And ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various

... frightful with the war-paint, danced with frenzied gestures round the blaze of their camp-fires, filled the air with ear-piercing war-whoops, and at the word of command hastened to their canoes and swept in hasty phalanx up the mighty stream, accompanied by Champlain and eleven ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... beaten back. All the energies of the British were concentrated upon scaling the breastworks, which one daring officer had already mounted. But Lafitte and his followers, seconding a gallant band of volunteer riflemen, formed a phalanx which it was impossible to penetrate. ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... those who really practised the licentiousness they celebrated, would be very numerous. One period alone, the reign of Charles the Second, would furnish more than enough to outnumber the above small phalanx of purity. Muretus, whose poems clearly gave him every right to knowledge on the subject, but whose known debauchery would certainly have forbidden any credit to accrue to himself from establishing the ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... the Biggest Store one morning four years before with seventy-five other girls, applying for a job behind the waist department counter. The phalanx of wage-earners formed a bewildering scene of beauty, carrying a total mass of blond hair sufficient to have justified the horseback gallops of a hundred ...
— Options • O. Henry

... the chosen home, the favoured haunt of educational success. Our staff is composed of lineal descendants of poets, seers, or savants, and it is the intention of this formidable phalanx of intellectuals to drive the whole world before them! We, of course, will say that these classes will be famous, and well worth attending. In Carlyle especially, the undersigned, with due modesty, expects to constitute himself a Memnon, and to receive the sage of Chelsea's martial pibroch ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various

... grave dictum of "Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur" was adopted from Publius Syrus, of whom, Sydney Smith affirms, "None of us, I am sure, ever read a single line!" Lord Byron, in his fifth edition of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, refers to the reviewers as an "oat-fed phalanx." ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous

... different spirit was stirring. By their admirable spy service, their motorcycle service, and their aeroplane service, the German staff were informed of defiant Hartford crowds gathering in Bushnell Park; of the Putnam Phalanx parading in continental uniforms, and of the Governor's First Company Foot Guards marching past the monument where the Charter Oak had stood facing the South Congregational Church; and of patriotic speeches from beside the statue of Nathan Hale ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett

... camp-fires, in lonely cabins, in flaring bar-rooms and noisy saloons, and declaimed from the boxes of stagecoaches. It was sung in Poker Flat with the addition of a local chorus, and danced as an unhallowed rhythmic dance by the Pyrrhic phalanx of One Horse Gulch, known as "The Festive Stags of Calaveras." Some unhappy ambiguities of expression gave rise to many new readings, notes, and commentaries, which, I regret to state, were more often marked by ingenuity than delicacy ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... my pity rarely move; Yet their strong thirst of liberty I love: Not Wilkes, our Freedom's holy martyr, more; Nor his firm phalanx of the ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... their billets. Never did men set their breasts against the bayonet with such reckless abandon. Never were the seas incarnadined with such stubborn blood. The "Charge of the Six Hundred" was repeated a thousand times. The Pass of Thermopylae was emulated by plowboys. The Macedonian Phalanx was as nothing to the Rock of Chickamauga. The Bridge of Lodi was duplicated at every stream. The spirit of the Old Guard animated raw recruits. The Retreat of the Ten Thousand became but a holiday excursion. Sailors fought their guns below the water line and went down ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... was, Alike they acted, Those chieftains twain In wedge-like phalanx. Chased were the East Wends Into a corner narrow, Not easy for the LaesirsSec. Was the law of ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson

... awaited their constancy when they had descended the hill, and drew near the pine-built and undecorated house of prayer. Around the door, from which the drummer still sent forth his thundering summons, was drawn up a formidable phalanx, including several of the oldest members of the congregation, many of the middle aged, and nearly all the younger males. Pearson found it difficult to sustain their united and disapproving gaze; but Dorothy, whose mind was differently circumstanced, merely drew the boy closer to her, ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... ground with a spade, and carried off a basketful of earth upon his shoulders. He made preparations for an expedition to the Pass of the Caspian mountains, forming a new legion out of his late levies in Italy, of men all six feet high, which he called the phalanx of Alexander the Great. These transactions, in part unexceptionable, and in part highly commendable, I have brought into one view, in order to separate them from the scandalous and criminal part of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... they move In perfect phalanx, to the Dorian mood Of flutes and soft recorders, such as raised To heights of noblest temper heroes old Arming to battle; and instead of rage, Deliberate valour breathed, firm and unmoved With dread of death to flight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... worst fears were realized in this unwarranted retreat, galloped over to Lee and urged that possession be taken of a neighbouring hill that commanded the plain on which the enemy were advancing. But Lee protested violently that the Americans had not a chance against that solid phalanx, and Hamilton, now convinced that he meditated the disgrace of the American arms, galloped with all speed in search ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... Magnesia in the thirty-seventh book, and, still more, that in the forty-fourth of the fiercely contested battle of Pydna, the desperate heroism of the Pelignian cohort, and the final and terrible destruction of the Macedonian phalanx. ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... and that the doors were to be thrown open to the public at three o'clock. Soon after half-past two Mrs Mackenzie's carriage was at the door, and the other Mackenzies having come up at the same time, the Mackenzie phalanx entered the building together. There were many others with them, but as they walked up they found the Countess of Ware standing alone in the centre of the building, with her four daughters behind her. She had on her head a wonderful ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... trial. Senior members of the University, heads of houses and professors, have no more voting power than the young men who have just taken their degrees, nay, have in reality less influence than these young Masters, who always meet together and form a kind of compact phalanx when votes are to be taken. There was even a Non-placet club, ready to throw out any measure that seemed to emanate from the reforming party, or threatened to change any established customs, whether beneficial or otherwise ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... brilliant phalanx of virtuous dowagers, generals and academicians, to whom he was bound by such close ties, that Swann compelled with so much cynicism to serve him as panders. All his friends were accustomed to receive, from time to time, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... special mention because of their long-continued zeal in the work.[509] If others failed us, these were always ready to work the hardest when the fight was hottest. And whatever might be our differences of opinion personally, we have always presented an unbroken phalanx to the foe. The original society at Salem having disbanded, its members joined the new State Association organized at Portland, which has ever since been regarded as the nucleus ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... ghastly blow, Unbroken was the ring; The stubborn spearmen still made good Their dark impenetrable wood, Each stepping where his comrade stood, The instant that he fell. No thought was there of dastard flight; Linked in the serried phalanx tight, Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, As fearlessly and well; Till utter darkness closed her wing O'er their thin host and wounded king. Then skilful Surrey's sage commands Led back from strife his shattered bands; And from the charge they drew, As mountain-waves, from ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... address by Prof. George A. Parker, of Hartford, Conn., on the occasion of the visit of the famous Putnam Phalanx to Putnam Park and Camp, ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... meanwhile the baggage should be brought together into one place, and the position be protected by those who were posted in the upper line. The Helvetii, having followed with all their waggons, collected their baggage into one place: they themselves, after having repulsed our cavalry and formed a phalanx, advanced up to our front line in ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar

... yesterday, took his seat, and announced his intention of supporting Government at any rate. All the Irish members do the same, and this great body, that everyone expected would display hostility to the Bill, have formed themselves into a phalanx, and will carry it through any difficulties by their compactness and the regularity ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... sceptic had one fanaticism. This fanaticism was neither a dogma, nor an idea, nor an art, nor a science; it was a man: Enjolras. Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated Enjolras. To whom did this anarchical scoffer unite himself in this phalanx of absolute minds? To the most absolute. In what manner had Enjolras subjugated him? By his ideas? No. By his character. A phenomenon which is often observable. A sceptic who adheres to a believer is as simple as the law of complementary colors. That which we lack attracts us. No one loves ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... before he attempted to play it. His method was that of the Jesuit, carried out in a Protestant fashion. In young Glazier he took especial interest. He liked the sturdy little fellow who, though full of youthful vim, could yet sit down and discuss the difference between a Macedonian phalanx as described by Rollin and a corps d'armee as manoeuvred by Soult, and he determined if possible—to use his own phraseology—"to make ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... ended as it began. The characters of certain conspicuous men have manifested themselves in a very striking manner, but that is all; the Government are still in their places, not a jot stronger than they were, and the Opposition maintain their undiminished phalanx without being at all nearer coming into power. The House of Commons uniformly supports the Government, the House of Lords frequently opposes it, but the difference between the two Houses seldom swells to a dispute; it is languidly carried on and carelessly regarded, the country at large ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... th' Angelic Squadron bright Turn'd fiery red, sharpning in mooned Horns Their Phalanx, and began to hem him ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... guilty, soon meets the destruction in consequence of the wicked ministers that lead him to that conviction.' After the tiger's mother had concluded her speech, a righteous agent of the jackal, stepping out of that phalanx of his foes, discovered everything about the manner in which that false accusation had been made. The jackal's innocence being made manifest, he was acquitted and honoured by his master. The king of beasts affectionately embraced him again and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... front, by the fretting waters of the Tarn, packed in a solid phalanx, with every head turned in the same direction, was a flock of sheep. They were motionless, all-intent, staring with horror-bulging eyes. A column of steam rose from their bodies into the rain-pierced ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... using such an argument as that, Wilton! It is too absurd, for the miners know me too well for that, and so do you; besides, it is far more perilous to venture out into the open, as you are about to do, than to remain here, where, united together as we are in a phalanx of stout, able-bodied men, in an almost impregnable position, we could resist any formidable attack in force. No, no, my boy; you may tell that to the marines. But do inform me, Wilton, what is your real motive in wishing to go yourself? I consent certainly to your going, as you press the ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... few Mexicans and Basques were fording the shallow river. Not one of those veiled threats and intimations had he confided to Creede, for the orders from Judge Ware had been for peace and Jeff was hot-headed and hasty; but in his own mind Hardy pictured a solid phalanx of sheep, led by Jasp Swope and his gun-fighting Chihuahuanos, drifting relentlessly in over the unravaged mesa. Even that he could endure, trusting to some appeal or protest to save him from the ultimate disaster, but the strain of this ominous waiting ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... town in council grave we assembled He was the first to rise with a flow of eloquence faultless, So that Nestor divine and myself confess'd him our master; But when on Troy's champain we strove with spear and with buckler Never amid the crowd you'd have found him or in the phalanx— Far in front he advanc'd, in courage shining the foremost, And full many a man he slew in the rage of the combat; There's no need to recount and to name in endless succession All the renown'd he slew, whilst assisting strongly ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... event spread instant terror through the German ranks. They broke and fled in disorder, followed by the death-phalanx of the Carocium, who cut them down in multitudes, and drove them back in complete disorder and defeat. For two days the emperor was mourned as slain, his unhappy wife even assuming the robes of widowhood, when suddenly he reappeared, and all was joy again. He had not been seriously hurt in his ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... composition which is very much admired in Holland. He dealt with every possible question, confounding luminous truths with the strangest paradoxes. He even raised the national literature, which had fallen into decadence, and left a phalanx of chosen disciples who followed in his steps in politics, art, and philosophy. Holland regards him not only with enthusiasm, but with fanaticism, and there is no doubt that after Vondel he is the greatest poet of his ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... we descried a herd of oxen (bison) extending a mile and a half in length, and too numerous to be counted. They travelled, not one after another, as, in the snow, other animals usually do, but, in a broad phalanx, slowly, and sometimes stopping to feed.... Their numbers were so great that we dreaded lest they should fairly trample down the camp; nor could it have happened otherwise, but for the dogs, almost as numerous as they, who were able to keep them ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... numberless dogs, that barked, and the admiration of ragged children, who pointed at us as we passed; but, if R——, or P——, or I, walked into a fisherman's hut, or any humbler dwelling, to inquire the way, a man, with unsheathed sword, and scowling brow, would step from this redoubted phalanx, and place himself on the threshold, watching minutely every action. Tormented at length to anger, by the pursuit of this file of armed men, P—— asked them what they meant; but receiving, of course, no reply to his common, yet, to them, incomprehensible question, he determined to seek out ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... truth; and called on the prophet Jesus himself to avenge the impious mockery of his name and religion. [26] With inferior numbers and disordered ranks, the king of Hungary rushed forward in the confidence of victory, till his career was stopped by the impenetrable phalanx of the Janizaries. If we may credit the Ottoman annals, his horse was pierced by the javelin of Amurath; [27] he fell among the spears of the infantry; and a Turkish soldier proclaimed with a loud voice, "Hungarians, behold the head of your king!" The death of Ladislaus was the signal ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... house where he had passed the night and Wodgate. He stopped, inquired, and being a man of science and some skill, decided, after examining the poor boy, that life was not extinct. Taking the elder Diggs aside, he said, "I am the editor of the Mowbray Phalanx; I will not speak to you before these people; but I tell you fairly you and your son have been represented to me as oppressors of the people. Will it be my lot to report this death and comment on it? I trust not. There is yet time ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... the rushing noise of a whirlwind, the mass of heavier and less speedy animals closed upon us: buffaloes and wild horses, all mixed together, an immense dark body, miles in front, miles in depth; on they came, trampling and dashing through every obstacle. This phalanx was but two miles from us. Our horses were nearly exhausted; we gave ourselves up for lost; a few minutes more, and we ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... and disposing, but afterward Bacchus, whom all acknowledge to be the best orderer of an army in the world. As therefore Epaminondas, when the unskilful captains had led their forces into narrow disadvantageous straits, relieved the phalanx that was fallen foul on itself and all in disorder, and brought it into good rank and file again; thus we in the beginning, being like greedy hounds confused and disordered by hunger, the god (hence named the looser ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... the skin of the distal phalanx of the second finger of the left hand above the root of the nail with lint and ether. Wind the rubber tubing tightly round the second phalanx; puncture with a sterile Hagedorn needle through the cleansed area ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... contracted, her nostrils quivering, her lips set tight and her chin dimpled. She had gone back thirty generations in as many seconds. Thus might one of the daughters of Boadicea have looked whilst guiding her mother's chariot against the Roman phalanx. Resting on one knee, with a revolver in each hand, she seemed no puling mate for the gallant man ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... towns; he rushed on the capital. He made no wars of detachments, but threw a colossal force across the frontier, held its mass together, and fought pitched battles day after day, until he trampled down all resistance by the mere weight of a phalanx of 250,000 men. Thus, in 1800, at Marengo, he reconquered Italy in twelve hours. In 1805, he broke down Austria in a three months' war. In 1806, he crushed the Prussian army in four-and-twenty hours, and walked over the monarchy. In 1807, he drove the Russians ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... real disposition, in the masses, to do otherwise. The attachment to the Union is very strong and general throughout the whole of this vast country, and it is only necessary to sound the tocsin to bring to its maintenance a phalanx equal to uphold its standard against the assaults of any enemies. The impossibility of the North-western States consenting that the mouth of the Mississippi should be held by a foreign power, is in itself a guaranty of ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper

... prevails there, it is doubtful whether it ever flourishes so vigorously anywhere else. Even so was it on board the Galatea; Violet and Blanche being waited upon hand and foot and followed about the decks from early morn to dewy eve, each by her own phalanx of devoted admirers. These attentions had at first been productive of nothing more serious than amusement to their recipients; but gradually, very gradually, Violet Dudley had manifested a partiality for the quiet unobtrusive ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... the ranks, hewed his way to within a lance's length of Surrey (so Surrey writes), and died, riddled with arrows, his neck gashed by a bill-stroke, his left hand almost sundered from his body. Night fell on the unbroken Scottish phalanx, but when dawn arrived only a force of Border prickers was hovering on the fringes of the field. Thirteen dead earls lay in a ring about their master; there too lay his natural son, the young Archbishop of St Andrews, and the Bishops of Caithness and the Isles. Scarce ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... phalanx of seventy-two elephants with those which had returned from Utica, and others which were private property, and rendered them formidable. He armed their drivers with mallet and chisel to enable them to split their skulls in the fight ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... of a defeated enemy. The panoply of the regular infantry consisted of a long spear, of a shield, helmet, breast-plate, greaves, and short sword. Thus equipped, they usually advanced slowly and steadily into action in an uniform phalanx of about eight spears deep. But the military genius of Miltiades led him to deviate on this occasion from the commonplace tactics of his countrymen. It was essential for him to extend his line so as to ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... phalanx falter? To the rescue, at the need, The clown was ploughing Persia, clearing Greek earth of weed, As he routed through the Sakian ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... she saw them turn from her, and in the course of a few minutes, they were running as fast as they well could in a solid body; and she says she can compare them to nothing but a swarm of bees, so dense was their phalanx, so straight their course, so hurried their march. As they passed with a rush very near the stand of the other preachers, the hearts of the people were smitten with fear, thinking that their entertainer had failed to enchain ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth

... and is to have the ball. In my day we had to kick it; now it is manipulated with the hands, and not forward, but backward. The players form a phalanx, and one of their number snaps, as it is called, the ball between his legs to someone behind him, who in turn passes it to another, who is expected to make a forward dash with it. Before I can quite realize what is being done the Harvard men are speeding toward ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... on the way back from Golden, while he was being rushed through the golden fields of summer, that suspicion of his cousin hit Kirby like a blow in the face. Facts began to marshal themselves in his mind, an irresistible phalanx of them. James was the only man, except his brother, who benefited greatly by the death of his uncle. Not only was this true; the land promoter had to die soon to help James, just how soon Kirby meant to ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine



Words linked to "Phalanx" :   war machine, dactyl, military force, digit, force, military unit, military, os, military machine, military group, armed services, phalangeal, crowd, armed forces, bone



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com