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Pledge   Listen
noun
Pledge  n.  
1.
(Law) The transfer of possession of personal property from a debtor to a creditor as security for a debt or engagement; also, the contract created between the debtor and creditor by a thing being so delivered or deposited, forming a species of bailment; also, that which is so delivered or deposited; something put in pawn. Note: Pledge is ordinarily confined to personal property; the title or ownership does not pass by it; possession is essential to it. In all these points it differs from a mortgage (see Mortgage); and in the last, from the hypotheca of the Roman law. See Hypotheca.
2.
(Old Eng. Law) A person who undertook, or became responsible, for another; a bail; a surety; a hostage. "I am Grumio's pledge."
3.
A hypothecation without transfer of possession.
4.
Anything given or considered as a security for the performance of an act; a guarantee; as, mutual interest is the best pledge for the performance of treaties. "That voice, their liveliest pledge of hope."
5.
A promise or agreement by which one binds one's self to do, or to refrain from doing, something; especially, a solemn promise in writing to refrain from using intoxicating liquors or the like; as, to sign the pledge; the mayor had made no pledges.
6.
A sentiment to which assent is given by drinking one's health; a toast; a health.
Dead pledge. (Law) A mortgage. See Mortgage.
Living pledge. (Law) The conveyance of an estate to another for money borrowed, to be held by him until the debt is paid out of the rents and profits.
To hold in pledge, to keep as security.
To put in pledge, to pawn; to give as security.
Synonyms: See Earnest.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pledge" Quotes from Famous Books



... death his widow, failing in an attempt to get official sanction for the manumission of Eulalie and her offspring and desiring the effort to be renewed in case of her own death, made a nominal sale of them to a relative under pledge of emancipation. When this man proved recreant and sold the group, now numbering seventeen souls, and the purchasers undertook possession, the case was litigated as a suit for freedom. Decision was rendered for the plaintiff, after appeal to the state ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... the pledge. 'E'd allus been used to 'is glass, Jack 'ad, and I think as knockin' it off 'ave soured 'im a bit—seems as if all the sperit 'ad gone out of 'im—and of course me and father 'ave 'ad to give up our little drop too. Then they told 'im as 'e must ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... the parents of Charlotte Temple, who was the only pledge of their mutual love, and who, at the earnest entreaty of a particular friend, was permitted to finish the education her mother had begun, at Madame Du Pont's school, where we first introduced her to the acquaintance of ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... the South, and most probably end in a total separation of the States; and that the Compromise measures of Congress meet their approbation, as the best that, under the circumstances, could be adopted, and they pledge themselves to give them ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... a nasty way of putting things! Liberal gentleman to Unionist gentleman: "Well, have you taken the pledge?" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various

... were sorely persecuted by the Moors, Alfonso now sent word to the Cid to punish them, a task the hero promised to perform, provided the king would pledge himself never again to banish a man without giving him thirty days' notice, and to make sundry other wise reforms in his laws. Having thus secured inestimable boons for his fellow-countrymen, the Cid proceeded to besiege sundry Moorish castles, all of which he ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... Son"; then upon the third finger, saying, "and of the Holy Ghost"; and then upon the fourth finger, saying, "Amen." "It was an old belief that a particular vein proceeded from the fourth finger to the heart." The ring, being of gold, and having neither beginning nor end, is not only a "token and pledge" of the vow and covenant made in marriage, but is also a symbol of the purity and unbroken constancy with which they should be ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester

... visited the office of the registrar, had made his application for a marriage licence, a proceeding which did not tend to soothe him. Later, when he saw Nancy again, he experienced a revival of that humaner mood which accompanied his pledge to marry her, the mood of regret, but also of tenderness, of compassion. A tenderness that did not go very deep, a half-slighting compassion. His character, and the features of the case, at present allowed no more; but he preferred the ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... the Kami of earth—the Tenshin and the Chigi—a solemn imprecation on rulers who attempted double-hearted methods of government, and on vassals guilty of treachery in the service of their sovereign. This amounted to a formal denunciation of the Soga as well as a pledge on the part of the new Emperor. The Chinese method of reckoning time by year-periods was then adopted, and the year A.D. 645 became the first of the Daika era. But before proceeding to really radical innovations, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... to surrender, to consent to remain neutral, or to leave their city and go where they would; all of which alternatives they declined. Thereupon the Spartan force invested the city, and prepared to take it by dint of arms. And thus Sparta kept the pledge of Plataean sacredness made by her king ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Kilydd, the son of Prince Kelyddon, by Goleuddydd, my mother, the daughter of Prince Anlawdd." "That is true," said Arthur. "Thou art my cousin. Whatsoever boon thou mayest ask, thou shalt receive, be it what it may that thy tongue shall name." "Pledge the truth of Heaven and the faith of thy kingdom thereof." "I pledge it thee, gladly." "I crave of thee then, that thou obtain for me Olwen, the daughter of Yspaddaden Penkawr, and this boon I likewise seek at the hands of thy warriors. I seek it from ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... O Willy, aye I bless the grove Where first I own'd my maiden love, Whilst thou did pledge the Powers above, To be my ain ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... insure the due fulfillment of his promise. Felipe had striven hard to have this payment put off to the period of the ship's return. But in vain. Still they thought they had, in another way, ample pledge of the good faith of the Frenchman. It was arranged that the expenses of the passage home should not be payable in silver, but in tortoises; one hundred tortoises ready captured to the returning captain's hand. These the Cholos ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... determined woman. She had married her father's foreman and opened a butcher's shop near Spring Gardens. But as soon as his father-in-law was dead Mr. Mooney began to go to the devil. He drank, plundered the till, ran headlong into debt. It was no use making him take the pledge: he was sure to break out again a few days after. By fighting his wife in the presence of customers and by buying bad meat he ruined his business. One night he went for his wife with the cleaver and she had to sleep ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... the return to office of a Liberal Government with a crushing majority behind it, whom the hostility displayed by the Liberal party towards Lord Curzon's administration on almost every Indian question save that which had brought about his resignation seemed to pledge to a prompt reversal of his policy. Was not the appointment to the India Office of such a stalwart Radical as Mr. John Morley, who had been Gladstone's Home Rule Secretary for Ireland, enough to justify the expectation that the right of India, if not to Home Rule, to a large measure of enfranchisement ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... appointed hour to redeem his plighted word. Back of Five-Mile Point is a picturesque rocky gorge called Mohican Canyon, through which a brook ripples, with clumps of fern and rose peeping from the crevices of its rugged walls. Having fulfilled his pledge, Deerslayer soon ventured the dash for liberty that so nearly succeeded; and, after making a circuit of the slope, it was along the ridge of Mohican Canyon that he ran at top speed to try a plunge for the lake, with the whole band of Indians ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... behaved nobly. He absolves me from the engagements towards him into which I so rashly entered, at our last interview before I left Browndown. Most generously and amply he has redeemed his pledge to Madame Pratolungo to discover the place of my retreat and to restore me to Lucilla. For the present he ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... back. War. When, can you tell? Arundel, no; we wot He that the care of his realm remits, And drives his nobles to these exigents For Gaveston, will, if he seize him once, Violate any promise to possess him. Arun. Then, if you will not trust his grace in keep, My lords, I will be pledge for his return. Y. Mor. 'Tis honourable in thee to offer this; But, for we know thou art a noble gentleman, We will not wrong thee so, To make away a true man for a thief. Gav. How mean'st thou, ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe

... perhaps, think it an unnatural thing that Mary should have regarded her pledge to the Doctor as of so absolute and binding force; but they must remember the rigidity of her education. Self-denial and self-sacrifice had been the daily bread of her life. Every prayer, hymn, and sermon, from her childhood, had warned her to distrust her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... could not have been more affectionate. I could not have thought that I should grow so fond of a man in so short a time. He takes the keenest interest in my venture, and I am to write him a full account. He gave me as we parted a black old meerschaum which he had coloured himself—the last possible pledge of affection from a smoker. It was pleasant for me to feel that if all went wrong at Bradfield, I had a little harbour at Merton for which I could make. Still, of course, pleasant and instructive as the life there was, I could not shut my eyes to the fact that it would take a terribly long time ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... been acting as interpreter, and as the palaver lasted from early morning until after dark she was much fatigued. Her last words were to encourage the chiefs to keep their pledge, and they would enjoy the benefits when she might be no more with them. The very suggestion of farewell alarmed them. "God cannot take you away from your children," they exclaimed, "until they are able to walk ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... thee some in the future! The love I bear thee now is different from that of the past. I cannot wait until to-morrow to pledge thee my ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... bitter fighting. And as they were nearly all church members in good standing, we can imagine that they prayed the Lord to hasten the day when this pestilent marplot in the White House should retire from office. Trusting Roosevelt so far as to believe that he would stand by his pledge not to be a candidate in 1908, they cast about for a person of their own stripe whom they could make the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... more to us, for she was our first from Benares, the heart of this great Hinduism; and her very presence seemed such a splendid pledge ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... "You may pledge all three. I will, and I will give you all I have that is not God's—and if that is not enough, I will give my soul for yours, if I may, ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford

... much history and memory,—how good to see them on our soil! Those early colonists were not original, nor particularly imaginative, but loyal lovers they were; and to give to their home here the name attaching to their home there was pledge of fidelity to dear old England. In Virginia, one will find what he can not find in New England, namely, assertions of loyalty to English princes; for the Puritans were never other than stanch friends of liberty, a thing which grew upon the citizens of the Old Dominion by degrees, and by ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... of geniality. 'Tis a cruel price we pay for certain fancy goods called fine arts and philosophy. In the Norse legend, Allfadir did not get a drink of Mimir's spring, (the fountain of wisdom,) until he left his eye in pledge. And here is a pedant that cannot unfold his wrinkles, nor conceal his wrath at interruption by the best, if their conversation do not fit his impertinency,—here is he to afflict us with his personalities. 'Tis incident to scholars, that each of them fancies ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... "How knowest thou, hag, that I am Peredur?" "By destiny, and the foreknowledge that I should suffer harm from thee. And thou shalt take a horse and armour of me; and with me thou shalt go to learn chivalry and the use of thy arms." Said Peredur, "Thou shalt have mercy, if thou pledge thy faith thou wilt never more injure the dominions of the Countess." And Peredur took surety of this, and with permission of the Countess, he set forth with the sorceress to the palace of the sorceresses. And there he remained ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... the maiden sighed with anguish, And in words like these made answer, 290 "O thou Ahti, son of Lempi, If you would caress the maiden, Keep her at your side for ever. Dove-like in thy arms for ever, Pledge thyself by oaths eternal, Not again to join in battle, Whether love of gold may lure you, Or your ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... the plural I have implied that there is at least one other talker or listener beside myself, and for all that appears there may be a dozen. There will be no regulation length to my reports,—no attempt to make out a certain number of pages. I have no contract to fill so many columns, no pledge to contribute so many numbers. I can stop on this first page if I do not care to say anything more, and let this article stand by itself if so minded. What a sense of freedom it gives not to write by ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Legends tell aright, Once fram'd a rich Elixir of Delight. A Chalice o'er love-kindled flames he fix'd, And in it Nectar and Ambrosia mix'd: With these the magic dews which Evening brings, 5 Brush'd from the Idalian star by faery wings: Each tender pledge of sacred Faith he join'd, Each gentler Pleasure of th' unspotted mind— Day-dreams, whose tints with sportive brightness glow, And Hope, the blameless parasite of Woe. 10 The eyeless Chemist heard the process rise, The steamy Chalice bubbled ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... it, and was met by the emperor at the porch of his palace. The fairest promises were made; every art that flattery could suggest was resorted to, and every argument employed, to induce him to yield his future conquests to the Greek. Louis obstinately refused to pledge himself, and returned to his army convinced that the emperor was a man not to be trusted. Negotiations were, however, continued for several days, to the great dissatisfaction of the French army. The news ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... but of two that I can recommend from personal knowledge; but these two officers I can venture to pledge myself for." ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... pearls, the proceeds of the entire fishing season up to the present, and the loss of them will mean to me irreparable ruin. I beg you to return them to me, senor, and in acknowledgment of your courtesy I pledge you the honour of a Spanish gentleman that I will remain silent as to your visit to this island. Otherwise I promise you that I will immediately spread the news of your presence in these waters, and of your atrocious act of piracy, throughout the length and ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... arrangement, with the sole proviso that nothing but the fiancailles, or betrothal, shall take place in Egypt, and that the completion of the marriage shall be deferred till their arrival in Ephesus—on the plea that he cannot pledge his faith to another in the land where his beloved Leucippe met with her fate. This proposal, after vehement opposition on the part of the amorous Ephesian, is at last agreed to; and Clitophon, with his half-married bride, sets sail for Ephesus, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... horizon-blue, packed closely side by side, Till their color sets ablaze the grey old square; And it's olive-drab, horizon-blue, whatever may betide, That will blaze the path to victory "up there." So, while standing thus together, let us pledge anew our troth To the Cause—the world set free!—for which we fight. As the evening twilight gilds the ranks of blue and khaki both, And the bugles die away into ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces

... can fail," said he, "Till thou and I shall fail from earth;' And we will walk in company, And waste the night with shameful mirth. I pledge thy fate; now pledge thou mine." I pledged ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... celestial mechanism has left the chaos which was in the beginning. If this earth were capable of the sentiments and emotions of justice and virtue, which in human mortal beings are the evidences and the pledge of our divine origin and immortal destiny, it would heave and throe with the energy of the elemental forces of nature, and project this enemy of two races of men into that vast region, there forever to exist, in a solitude as eternal as life, or as the absence of life, emblematical of, if ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... at me so hard, Luke," continued the sexton; "I doubt neither your courage nor your firmness. But if you won't drink, I will. Here's to the rest eternal of Sir Piers Rookwood! You'll say amen to that pledge, or you are neither grandson of mine, nor ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... I am going to ask a great favor of you. You are happily married, you have a noble husband and abundant means, and you know we once pledged ourselves to befriend each other, if either should ever find herself in trouble. Presuming upon that pledge, I am going to ask if you will take my darling, my poor innocent little waif, bring her up as your own, and never let her know anything about the stain that rests upon her birth? She is pure; she is not to blame for the sins of her parents, and I cannot bear the ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... he were living in a fool's paradise he would know it, and he ventured to put his fortune to the test of experiment. The only manly course was to gain the consent of the parents to ask their daughter to marry him; if not that, then to be permitted to see her. He was nobly resolved to pledge himself to make no proposals to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... chance of giving her goods to save the pledging.[130] This is very plainly a step towards father-right. There is no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children. Similar conditions prevail among the Alladians of the Ivory Coast, but here the mother cannot pledge her children without the consent of her brother or other male head of the family. The father has the right to ransom the child.[131] An even stronger example of the property value of children is furnished by the custom found among many tribes, by which the father has to make a present to the wife's ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... was permitted to leave it, in order to rejoin his father in France. In the mean time, advices were received from Ferdinand the Catholic, instructing Gonsalvo on no account to suffer the young prince to escape from his hands, as he was a pledge of too great importance for the Spanish government to relinquish. The general in consequence sent after the duke, who had proceeded in company with the count of Potenza as far as Bitonto, on his way to the north, and commanded him to be arrested and brought back to Tarento. Not long ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... say to me, my sov'reign, was my impeachment just? I staked my head thereon: How is the pledge redeemed? Behold him in the very act: honor and fame, faithfully I have ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner

... the guard from Hazlewood House!' exclaimed the proprietor in mingled displeasure and surprise; 'and YOU will be answerable for it! And, pray, who are you, sir, that I should take your security and caution and pledge, official or personal, for the safety of Hazlewood House? I think, sir, and believe, sir, and am of opinion, sir, that if any one of these family pictures were deranged or destroyed or injured it would be difficult for me to make up the loss upon the guarantee which ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... only because of the deliberate pledge I gave in p. 51.—Never again, I undertake to say, will the "Scholion of Eusebius" which has cost my friend at Moscow, his Archimandrites, and me, so much trouble, be introduced into any discussion of the genuineness ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... in heaven and earth and hell, that every tongue should confess to Him that Jesus Christ is Lord, and whose coming we expect ere long to judge the living and dead; who will render to every one according to his works; who hath poured forth abundantly on us both the gift of His Spirit and the pledge of immortality; who makes the faithful and obedient to become the sons of God and coheirs with Christ; whom we confess and adore one God in the Trinity of the holy Name. For He Himself has said by the prophet: "Call upon me in the day of thy trouble: I will deliver ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... his strong right hand almighty, rent he now the ground in twain, Broke the red stone of the quarry, and, resounding o'er the plain, Came this message to the warriors:—"Let this be to you a sign: Make you calumets of pipe-stone, pledge you peace and love divine, By the smoking of this signet. Let it pass from hand to hand. Cease you from your wars and wrangling, and be brothers in ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... followed them in 1815 into exile; and in 1830, after the Revolution of July, spoke with fervor in defence of the rights of the Duke of Bordeaux. Chateaubriand refused to pledge the oath of allegiance to Louis Philippe, and left in consequence the Chamber of Peers, and a salary of 12,000 francs. From this period he devoted himself entirely to the service of the unfortunate duchess and her son. Against the exclusion of the elder branch ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... went hammer and tongs at the practical teachings of the flood. "That night in Alma Hall when we thought we would all die I heard men call on God in prayer and pledge themselves to lead better lives if life was given them. Since then I heard those same men cursing and swearing in these streets. Brethren, there was no real prayer in any of those petitions put up by those of godless lives that night. They were merely crying out to a higher ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... oath or vow has been made will nerve one to abstinences and efforts otherwise impossible; witness the "pledge" in the history of the temperance movement. A mere promise to his sweetheart will clean up a youth's life all over—at any rate for time. For such effects an educated susceptibility is required. The idea of one's "honor," for example, unlocks energy only in those of us who have had the ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... saying the other evening that you would see "any one else d—d first," before you would assent to the little proposal I made to you, as the most distinct and binding acceptance you are capable of. You have nothing else to swear by, and so you swear at everybody but me when you want to pledge yourself. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... matter. Charles stood up. "Well, dearest Carlton," he said, "we must part; it must be going on for eleven." He pulled out of his pocket a small "Christian Year." "You have often seen me with this," he continued, "accept it in memory of me. You will not see me, but here is a pledge that I will not forget you, that I will ever remember you." He stopped, much affected. "Oh, it is very hard to leave you all, to go to strangers," he went on; "I do not wish it, but I cannot help it; I am called, I am compelled." ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... power from the hands of the people and places it in the hands of the national council. Mark the form of the expression, too, that the republican form of government is to be guaranteed, not merely by Congress or the executive, but by the United States; as if to pledge the whole power of the nation, of whatever kind, to protect this priceless blessing, through all coming time, to the use and benediction of all ages. Notice, too, to whom the guarantee runs—not to the territory now composing the State, but ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... and their private virtues, have acquired an influence in the country; the people on whose favour that influence depends, and from whom it arose, will never be duped into an opinion, that such greatness in a Peer is the despotism of an aristocracy, when they know and feel it to be the effect and pledge ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... Tenderness of the best of Aunts, but even to supply that of the best of Fathers; I am sure it will be a pleasure to you to hear that she proves worthy of her Father, worthy of you, and of your Ancestors. Her Ingenuity is admirable; her Frugality extraordinary. She loves me, the surest Pledge of her Virtue; and adds to this a wonderful Disposition to Learning, which she has acquir'd from her Affection to me. She reads my Writings, studies them, and even gets them by heart. You'd smile to see the Concern she is in when I have a Cause to plead, and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... choice. It is still remembered that when a householder in those days was very hard up, owing, perhaps, to his too frequent visits to the thirteen public-houses, he would go to some substantial tradesman in the place and pledge his twenty guineas, due at the next election! In due time, after the Reform Bill, it was deprived of its glory, and later when the South-Western Railway built their line from Salisbury to Yeovil and left Hindon some miles away, ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... reminded her of George in his expression. The man, she thought, would redeem what pledge he gave; he might be guilty of rashness, but he would not slink away when the reckoning came. Then she became conscious of a half-tender regret. It was a pity that George was so fond of the background, and left it only when he was needed, while Brand was a prominent figure wherever ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... him with a dagger or knife; hereupon people would not drink in company unless some one present would be their pledge or surety, that they should receive no hurt, whilst they were in their draught; hence that usual phrase, I'll pledge you, or be a pledge for you." Others affirm the true sense of the word was, that if the party drank to, were not disposed to drink himself, he would put another for a pledge to do it for him, else the party who began would take ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various

... I tell you. But fust of all you got to take the pledge of silence. Whatsomever takes place heah in this cabin to-night ain't never to be revealed till the jedgment-day. ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice

... that if he were a prisoner of war let out on parole, with a pledge to return in one hour or suffer death, he would turn up cool and comfortable on the sixtieth tick of the sixtieth minute of that hour, and look quite surprised at the men who were loading their muskets for ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... Dale, I pledge thee! and when thou hast drunk to me in turn we will talk of weighty matters. For indeed I bear hopes in my hands too heavy for the daughters of men to bear; and thou art a chieftain's son, and mayst well help me to bear them; ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... opposed the election of Mr. Madison to the presidency, whom he regarded as the impersonation of the restrictive policy which he had defended in his diplomatic writings, and from the press; and which was deemed the pledge of its continuance; and, in the spring of 1809, voted for the federal candidate for Congress, in opposition to Newton, who, though coming from a sea-port, had gallantly upheld the commercial policy of Jefferson, and who was returned by ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... the pledge, but he knew that his mother did not want him to touch liquor. And it had been no deprivation for him to refrain, as he did not like it. What he had just drunk burnt his throat like fire. It seemed as if he could not ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.

... the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave is not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it. Bear in mind, the judges do not pledge their judicial opinion that such right is impliedly affirmed in the Constitution; but they pledge their veracity that it is "distinctly and expressly" affirmed there—"distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything else; "expressly," that is, in words meaning ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... Majesty he would support the new Government in carrying out the principles, to carry out which a majority of the members of his own Cabinet refused to aid him; still he did not, when interrogated on the subject, pledge himself to support Lord John who then saw the promised aid could not be relied on; for any change in the programme might be regarded as a change of principle, and no minister takes up the precise programme of his predecessor. Still, on the 18th Lord ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... debauch, ragged and filthy, but in a state of lachrymose repentance. The poor wife received him as a returned prodigal, believed that his remorse would prove lasting, and felt sure that if she and the children went to church with him on Easter Sunday and he could be induced to take the pledge before the priest, all their troubles would be ended. After hours of vigorous effort and the expenditure of all her savings, he finally sat on the front doorstep the morning of Easter Sunday, bathed, shaved and ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... Perhaps, of the two, this reserve weighed most on Susan; perhaps she most yearned to break the silence,—for she thought she divined the cause of Mainwaring's gloomy and mute constraint in the upbraidings of his conscience, which might doubtless recall, if no positive pledge to Susan, at least those words and tones which betray the one heart, and seek to allure the other; and the profound melancholy stamped on his whole person, apparent even to her hurried glance, touched her with ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Some poor, benighted, fanatical woman would pledge herself and would be considered with awe till she died. But in these times no one flung himself under the car; nothing but the incense of crushed flowers now followed his wake. His grin, however, was the same as of old. Wood, paint, gilt ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath

... interference, and the certain counter-revolution which would be attempted by all the malign influences to which the German Government has of late accustomed the world. Can peace be based upon a restitution of its power or upon any word of honor it could pledge in a ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson

... now gave place to something like panic, as they comprehended what the rash pledge of their young chief really meant. It meant that thirty of them must go, and one must stay; and what could one man do to defend a castle like Singleton Towers? The elder soldiers ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... comes, you and I must fight; let us then pledge our lives to our country in her hour of peril." And standing there, these two men, grand types of the Young America which was rising above the shame of its dark past, pledged themselves to fight for the old flag and ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford

... ere cold fear Froze, or doubt shook the mirror of his soul: To reach it, he must climb the present slope Of this day's duty—here he would not rest. But all the time the glory is at hand, Urging and guiding—only o'er its face Hangs ever, pledge and screen, the bridal veil: He knows the beauty radiant underneath; He knows that God who is the living God, The God of living things, not of the dying, Would never give his child, for God-born love, A cloud-made phantom, fading in the sun. Faith vanishes in sight; the cloudy veil Will melt ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... Now I know you are game," said Larson, seizing the boy by the shoulders and peering into his eyes. Then they shook hands silently, but it was an unspoken pledge nevertheless. ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... stand, a priest was summoned to tie the knot too long ignored. He had vowed, while pinned down by the weight of stone, to amend his life and atone to Agnes, if God in his mercy should see fit to deliver him, and he wasted not a moment in executing his pledge to Heaven. That his spirit had been effectually chastened, one reads between the lines of this entry in his diary, which may still be seen in the rooms of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston: "Hope my providential escape will have a lasting good effect ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... Madison's own devising. The American ministers in England and France were instructed that Great Britain would be expected to include in the revocation of her orders in council the blockade of a portion of the coast of France, declared in May, 1806; and the President offered, unasked, a pledge to the French emperor, that this should be insisted upon. Whether he meant to make it easier for Napoleon and harder for Great Britain to respond to the act of May is a question impossible to answer; but the opponents of the policy he was pursuing were careful to point out that the ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... having a due proportion put under your immediate command,) his means of doing so are but very limited. His excellency is not sanguine in his expectation of receiving reinforcements this summer; on the contrary, the appearance of hostilities beginning to abate at Washington, and the pledge held out in the prince regent's speech of supporting with energy the contest in Spain and Portugal, are likely to prevent troops being sent to this quarter, unless a more urgent necessity of doing so should appear. ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... Lord John Russell, but Russell's party were not very strong in the country and they had not a majority in the House of Commons. Lord John tried, however, to form a ministry without a Parliamentary majority, and even although Sir Robert Peel would not give any pledge to support a measure for the immediate and complete repeal of the corn laws, Lord John ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... admitted, that a degree conferred by an university, ought to be a pledge to the public that he who holds it possesses a certain quantity of knowledge. The progress of society has rendered knowledge far more various in its kinds than it used to be; and to meet this variety in the tastes and inclinations of those who come to us for instruction, ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage

... some of his colleagues, thought that Mr. Mildmay had been imprudent. "No man ought ever to pledge himself to anything," said Sir Harry Coldfoot to the Duke;—"that is, to anything unnecessary." The Duke, who was very true to Mr. Mildmay, made no reply to this, but even he thought that his old friend had been betrayed into a promise too rapidly. But the pledge was given, and some people already ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... council of Lateran, where they were received with all honour by Pope Alexander III. From Rome he returned with legantine powers which he used with great energy during the year 1180. In the autumn of that year, he was entrusted with the delivery to Henry II. of the son of Roderick O'Conor, as a pledge for the fulfilment of the treaty of Windsor, and with other diplomatic functions. On reaching England, he found the king had gone to France, and following him thither, he was seized with illness as he approached the Monastery of Eu, and with a prophetic foretaste of ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... trouble." Tisdale found one halter as he spoke and reached for the other. "It is getting this trap over that will take time. But I pledge myself to see you through these mountains before dark; and when we strike the levels of the Columbia, these colts are going ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... forgive and cleanse the penitent sinner who confesses and forsakes his sins,* what was originally grace and mercy becomes faithfulness and justice; for God owes it to Himself and to His creature to stand by His own pledge, and fulfil the lawful expectation which His ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... them in a ring. "Take this ring; keep it. It is firm, like my purpose, and unending, like my endeavor. I shall replace it with a chain of bright silver when I come to you again. I give it to you in pledge of ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... models in this Academy," said Miss Voscoe. "Oh, we'll make the time-honoured institutions sit up with the work we'll do. Let's all pledge ourselves to send in to the Salon—or anyway to the Independants! What we're suffering from in this quarter's git-up-and-git. Why should we ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit

... of a man who makes a spoken word of that sort more binding than a written pledge with a notarial seal." Again Daunt shook the Morrison hand. ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... must take the chance And hazard of sedition. O, wretch! to pledge your manhood in advance ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... are greatly indebted to you, M'sieur Royle," he replied, with exquisite politeness; "but it is not within my province as Chef du Surete to tell you facts which have been revealed to me under pledge of secrecy." ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux

... the money I had entrusted to his care. This is all, gentlemen. To the absolute truth of every detail of my statement I solemnly swear, and I call Him to witness who is the Truth and the loving Father of all whose lips abhor false speaking; I pledge my honor as a Senator, that I have spoken but the truth. May God forgive this wicked man ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... farther than the Benedictines and the Orders derived from them, for they prescribe the kind of press in which the books are to be kept. Both they and the Premonstratensians permit their books to be lent on the receipt of a pledge of sufficient value. Lastly, the Friars, though they were established on the principle of holding no possessions of any kind, soon found that books were indispensable; that, in the words of a Norman Bishop, Claustrum ...
— Libraries in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods - The Rede Lecture Delivered June 13, 1894 • J. W. Clark

... been born whose history might be brief, but the people who created it and the leader who guided its destiny were the pledge ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... in the settlement of his province, was neither land, gold nor dominion, but "the glory of God, by the civilization of the poor Indian." Upon his arrival in Pennsylvania, the pledge contained in his charter was redeemed by a friendly compact with the "poor Indian" which was never to be violated, and by a uniform and scrupulous devotion to his rights and interests. Oldmixon and Clarkson ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... "I pledge you my word I won't touch a drop till you have taken this. You don't realize what you have been through, Mr. Morton. Your hand so trembled that you could scarcely carry the cup; you are all unnerved. Come," she added gravely, "you must be in a condition to help, ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... invasion of deadly doctrines, wrestle and do not fear. If men rise against God in the name of the modern mind, of the science of the age, of the progress of civilization, do not suffer yourselves to be stunned by these clamors. Let the past be to you the pledge of the future! To make of atheism a novelty, is an error. To make of it, in a general way, the characteristic of our epoch, ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... received instructions from the Protector to threaten the southern coast of France and Piedmont, should the Duke refuse to make all the reparation in his power. The menace had its due effect, and the Duke gave a pledge not again to interfere with the Christian inhabitants of those lovely valleys. We sailed for the Straits of Gibraltar, calling on the way at Malaga to obtain water and fresh provisions. While a party of our seamen were on shore at ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston

... States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing

... To the pledge of safe custody with which we accept this gift, we join the solemn promise that with still greater fidelity we will guard the inheritance of free institutions which has come to us through the valor of Washington and the wisdom of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various

... freely, hoping, hand in hand with the greatest of all republics, to advance in civilization and progress, and to become part of the republic to which we pledge our faith forever." ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... grow despite receipt of more than $2 billion in bilateral assistance at the 2002 Paris II Donors Conference. The Israeli-Hizballah conflict in July-August 2006 caused an estimated $3.6 billion in infrastructure damage, and prompted international donors to pledge nearly $1 billion in recovery and reconstruction assistance. Donors met again in January 2007 at the Paris III Donor Conference and pledged more than $7.5 billion to Lebanon for development projects and budget support, conditioned on progress on Beirut's ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... doctrine hinder or forestal the doctrine of regeneration or conversion; nay, it lays a foundation for it; for by this doctrine we gather assurance that Christ will have his own; for if already they live in their head, what is that but a pledge that they shall live in their persons with him? and, consequently, that to that end they shall, in the times allotted for that end, be called to a state of faith, which God has ordained shall precede and go before their personal enjoyment ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... drew neere to the French, and began to make him a long Oration, which tended to no other end, but that he besought the Frenchmen very earnestly to come and see his dwelling and his parents, which they granted him, and straight for pledge of better amitie, he gaue vnto my Lieutenant Ottigni, the very skinne that he ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt



Words linked to "Pledge" :   promise, assurance, fuddle, collateralize, honour, reward, vouch, give, donate, obligate, hypothecate, vow, salute, troth, toast, pledge taker, bind, warranty, plight, consign, security interest, hold



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