Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Slayer   Listen
noun
Slayer  n.  One who slays; a killer; a murderer; a destroyer of life.






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





"Slayer" Quotes from Famous Books



... But the visitors were merely visitors, and could go home when they liked. The future admiral of the pirate-killing fleet declared he must go and get supper, or he'd eat the grass, he was so hungry. The coming Premier of Canada and the Indian-slayer agreed with him, and they all jumped the fence, and went whooping away over the soft brown fields ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith

... of these, with some red feathers, and other valuable articles, to the Toutou's master, who generally accepts the compensation, and permits him to repossess his house and lands. This practice is the height of venality and injustice; and the slayer of the slave seems to be under no farther necessity of absconding, than to impose upon the lower class of people, who are the sufferers. For it does not appear that the chief has the least power to punish this Manahoone; but the whole management marks a collusion between him ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... at my father and my dead brothers; I held my peace while Ornulf was here, lest he should learn that Thorolf fell by a dastard's hand. But now—praise Gunnar nevermore for that deed in Iceland; for Gunnar is a weakling! The sword that lay drawn between thee and the bear-slayer hangs at my husband's side—and the ring thou didst take from thy arm thou gavest to Sigurd. (Takes it off and ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen

... their lord whom they had lost, come running to the duke and tell him weeping of his nephew's death. The duke saw no joke in this affair; and, swearing by God and all His saints that he will take no joy or pride in life so long as the slayer of his nephew remains alive, he adds that whoever will bring him his head will be his friend and will serve him well. Then a knight made boast that if he can find the guilty man, he will present him with Cliges' head. Cliges follows the young men until he falls among the Saxons, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... God that on the wand'ring brine Thou and this braggart tongue of thine Had sunk beneath the main— Thy mast and planks, made fast in vain! Thee would I drive aboard once more, A slayer and ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... smiled Carroll, "I won't eat you. But what you tell me about Miss Gresham is interesting. Why in the world should she be prejudiced against the man who is trying to locate the slayer of her fiance?" ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen

... himself mentally as though he were in the presence of the sweet Bertha. He had had to kill, in order not to be killed. Such is war. He tried to console himself by thinking that Erckmann, perhaps, had failed to identify him, without realizing that his slayer was the shipmate of the summer. . . . And he kept carefully hidden in the depths of his memory this encounter arranged by Fate. He did not even tell Argensola who knew of the incidents of ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... my love into a hell of fathomless horrors, I soon had eyes for the one fact only, that the woman lying before me was sufficiently like myself to inspire me with the hope of preserving my secret and keeping from my would-be slayer the knowledge of my having escaped the doom ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green

... mate, Thakin. He is a slayer of flesh. He kills in the shambles. Oh, it is true. I saw him slit the mouth of a dog with his knife ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... shook his head, and finally said, "These are the bones of your father; Stone Shirt killed him, and left him to rot here on the ground, like a wolf." And the boy was filled with indignation against the slayer of his father. Then the stranger asked, "Is your mother in yonder lodge?" and the boy replied, "No." "Does your mother live on the banks of this river?" and the boy answered, "I don't know my mother; I have never seen her; she is dead." "My son," replied the stranger, "Stone ...
— Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians • John Wesley Powell

... no,' said James; 'but set me in the saddle, let me learn war under such a captain as yourself, and maybe they will not take the field against me; or if they do, the slayer of Clarence shall ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... had also been too near a lance, and several others had received slight wounds. The German was the only one killed. He was still lying out on the plain, where he had fallen, the long shaft of the lance standing up out of his skull. Not ten feet distant lay the corpse, of his slayer, glistening in ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... look amazed, Not knowing they were lost as soon as given— Slid from my hands, when I was leaning out Above the river—that unhappy child Past in her barge: but rosier luck will go With these rich jewels, seeing that they came Not from the skeleton of a brother-slayer, But the sweet body of a maiden babe. Perchance—who knows?—the purest of thy knights May win them for the purest ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... pretty well-known that two Eskimo men of average strength and courage are more than a snatch for the Polar bear, if armed with spears. The mode of attack is simple. The two men separate. The one who arranges to be the slayer of the animal advances on its left side; the other on its right. Thus the victim's attention is distracted; it becomes undecided which foe to attack first. The hunter on the right settles the question ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... the host: "What a magnificent and delicious meal this is! But once before in my life did I partake of one like it, and that was when I was bidden by the king to his table"—enough to drive terror to the heart of the would-be slayer. He takes good care not to harm a man on such intimate terms with the king as to be invited ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... Deborah, Beat the tambourine and danced While she sang a hymn in praise Of the slayer ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine

... Carlton set fire to the Lewis "love bungalow." | |The wounded were unable to care for themselves. They| |narrowly escaped death in the burning building. | |Arrival of rescuing parties attracted by the fire | |alone saved their lives. | | | |A hatchet was the weapon used by Carlton. | | | |The slayer escaped after the wholesale murder. He is| |thought to be headed for Chicago. A posse under | |command of Sheriff Bauer of Spring Green is hunting | |the man. | | | |The story of the terrible tragedy enacted in the | |Lewis "love bungalow," ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... entertainment." His pink colour faded, and in Arabic he begged the Caid to give orders that, if the lamb were for them, its life be spared, as they were under a vow never to touch meat. This was the first excuse he could think of; and when, to his joy, a message was sent after the slayer of innocence, he added that, very unfortunately, they had a pressing engagement which would tear them away from the Caid's ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... a dead starling on the downs ranged over by sparrowhawks, it is almost always a young bird—a "brown thrush" as it used to be called by the old naturalists. You may know that the slayer was a sparrowhawk by the appearance of the bird, its body untouched, but the flesh picked neatly from the neck and the head gone. That was swallowed whole, after the beak had been cut off. You will find the beak lying by the side of the body. In summertime, when birds are most abundant, after ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... done, And Greek or Trojan paid it. Late or soon By sword or bitter arrow they went hence, Each with their goodliest paying one man's offence. Goodliest in Troy fell Hector; back to Greek Then swung the doomstroke, and to Dis the bleak Must pass great Hector's slayer. Zeus on high, Hidden from men, held up the scales; the sky Told Thetis that her son must go the way He sent Queen Hecuba's—himself must pay, Himself though young, splendid Achilles' self, The price of manslaying, with ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... Sergius decided to pay no heed to the message and have nothing to do with this affair, and John with a small army was compelled to engage with an innumerable host of the enemy. And there had always been great enmity between him and Stotzas, and each one used to pray that he might become the slayer of the other before departing from the world. At that time, accordingly, as soon as the fighting was about to come to close quarters, both rode out from their armies and came against each other. And John drew his bow, and, as Stotzas was still advancing, made a successful ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius

... Raleigh. "I wear an amulet, and have a spell of art-magic at my tongue's end, whereby, sir ancient, neither can a ghost see me, nor I see them. Come with us, Yeo, the Desmond-slayer, and we will shame the devil, or be ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... the Earth, O God, Thou to whom all is plain; Look on my sin, my blood, This horror of dead things twain; Gathered as one they lie Slain; and the slayer was I, I, ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides

... it merely recovered his own possession, for he who had lost the purse by the river, had formerly stolen it from him; but the one who seemed to be innocently slain is only making atonement for having at one time murdered the father of his slayer." [290] In this way, God granted the request of Moses, "to show him His ways," in part only. He let him look into the future, and let him see every generation and it sages, every generation and its prophets, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... how much of Bible story clusters about the spot! It was a "city of refuge"; and over these hills or up and down this valley rushed the accidental man-slayer to seek refuge within its gates from the blood-thirsty pursuer. Here Ahab was slain (I. Kings 22:34-37), here Ahaziah and Jehoram defeated Hazael (II. Kings 8:28, 29; 9:14), and here Jehu was anointed king of Israel and rode forth in a chariot to ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal

... of the hideous, ghastly hours that Paul spent then, ever obsessed with this one bitter thought? Why had he not gone back? Why had he not gone back when that impulse had seized him? Why had Vasili, and not he, had the satisfaction of killing this vile slayer ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... iron, And his face was copper-colored; Quick the hero full unfolded, Like the full corn from the kernel. On his head a hat of flint-stone, On his feet were sandstone-sandals, In his hand a golden cleaver, And the blade was copper-handled. Thus at last they found a butcher, Found the magic ox a slayer. Nothing has been found so mighty That it has not found a master. As the sea-god saw his booty, Quickly rushed he on his victim, Hurled him to his knees before him, Quickly felled the calf of Suomi, Felled the young ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... the beggars answered never a word, but they looked at Robin as great Blunderbore looked upon stout Jack the slayer of giants, as though they would fain eat him, body and bones; nevertheless, they did not care to come nigher to him and his terrible staff. Then, seeing them so hesitate, Robin of a sudden leaped upon them, striking even as he leaped. ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... cried looking about him with hate in his face. He did not know who had done it; no one knew yet, and he saw in every man he looked upon the possible slayer ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin

... case of certain persons, is found among the Fijians: in the long and difficult way to the Underworld, bachelors (as a rule), untattooed women, false boasters, and those men who failed to overcome in combat the "slayer of souls" (the god Sama) are killed and eaten.[87] Something like this is reported of the Hervey Islands,[88] New Zealand,[89] the Hawaiians,[90] and other tribes. Among the wild tribes of India, the Khonds and ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world,' sings the choir in its sad, high chant, and Saint Martin bows, standing, over the altar, himself communicating, while the Exarch holds his breath, and the slayer fixes his small, keen eyes on the embroidered vestments and guesses how they will look with a red ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... too long to tell of all the wonderful deeds which Hermes, the "Argus slayer," the messenger ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... at Olympia, my lord High-Thunderer, and you had not the energy to wake the dogs or call in the neighbours; surely they might have come to the rescue and caught the fellows before they had finished packing up the swag. But there sat the bold Giant-slayer and Titan-conqueror letting them cut his hair, with a fifteen-foot thunderbolt in his hand all the time! My good sir, when is this careless indifference to cease? how long before you will punish such wickedness? Phaethon-falls and Deucalion-deluges—a ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... to use an auxiliary language on occasion rounds off and completes the levelling process. But the old leisurely past will not be any the less dead, or any the less effectually buried, if one nail is not driven home in the coffin. The slayer is modernity at large, made up of science, steam, democracy, universal education, and many other things—but especially universal education. And the verdict can be, at the most, justifiable, or at any rate inevitable, pasticide. You cannot ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... said Red Dog. He had simply knifed in self-defence a beggarly Brule who quarrelled with him over a girl. The blood of Lone Wolf cried aloud for vengeance, and the agent should not be permitted to harbor or conceal his slayer. "You've got no time to lose," said Boynton, who had kept his scouts on the alert. "You should arrest that old villain at once or he'll stir the whole reservation into mutiny." The agent thought he could accomplish more by seeing him and having a talk. "Indians ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... went, with a yell and a hand-spring, to throw in his lot with Manuel and Joseph and be chased by the doughty Deer-slayer and her hound. In the readjustment of parts Rosa was told to answer to the name of Hector. It was all one to Rosa whether she was hound or redskin, so long as she was allowed a part in the thrilling new ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... bones of Corythus bestow Within a gold cruse, wrought with many a sign, And wrapp'd the cruse about with linen fine And bare it to the tomb: when, lo, the wild OEnone sprang, with burning eyes divine, And shriek'd unto the slayer of her child: ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang

... youngling, I will look to him at once and teach him a little manners." And therewith he went up to Osberne and smote him a cheek-slap from behind. Surly John laughed, and made a mow at him, and said: "Ho! young wolf-slayer, feelest thou that? Now is come the end of they mastery!" But neither for slap nor for gibe did Osberne flinch one ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris

... blood, and how his teeth did dance, His side sink in? as my knight cried and said: Slayer of unarm'd men, here is ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris

... presence of [Osiris]. I am clean of mouth and clean of hands; therefore let it be said unto me by those who shall behold me, 'Come in peace, come in peace.' I have heard the mighty word which the spiritual bodies spake unto the Cat [Footnote: i.e., R[a] as the slayer of the serpent of darkness, the head of which be cuts off with a knife. (See above, p. 63). The usual reading is "which the Ass spake to the Cat;" the Ass being Osiris and the cat R[a].] in the house of Hapt-re. I have testified in the presence of Hra-f-ha-f, and he hath given [his] decision. I ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge

... the body of his opponent, and from the squirming wretch's back protruded the barbed point. The fellow threw his arms wildly over his head, and fell to the ground, and with his last breath cursed his slayer ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... land and slaves to wait upon thee. Get thee to the house of Haleel. There shall the blow fall on the head of Achmet, the blow which was mine to strike, but that Allah stayed my hand that I might do thee and thy Pasha good, and to give the soul-slayer and the body-slayer into the hands of Kaid, upon whom be everlasting peace!" Her voice dropped low. "Thou saidst but now that I had beauty. Is there yet any beauty in my face?" She lowered her yashmak and looked at him with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... wife, Lola, confess that Turiddu, not her husband, is the father of Anita, The lovers are thus discovered to be half brother and sister. This reminder of his betrayal by Lola infuriates Alfio anew. He rushes upon his wife to kill her, but Santuzza, who hates him as the slayer of her lover, throws herself between and plunges her dagger in Alfio's heart. Having thus taken revenge for Turiddu's death, Santuzza dies out of hand, Lola, as an inferior character, falls in a faint, and Massimo makes an ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... best slayer: courage slayeth also fellow-suffering. Fellow-suffering, however, is the deepest abyss: as deeply as man looketh into life, so deeply also doth ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... never, oh never, My Beaconsfield's dead, and my Gordon is killed! Oh, blame not my foemen Or a Brutus-like Roman, Or Soudanese Arabs for Gordon's sad doom; But blame that vain Briton Whose name is true written, The slayer of ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright

... almost every house is a fortress. The law of blood revenge, the right of which is transmitted from father to son, draws the whole population under its bloody sway in the course of a few generations. Life is a running fight, and every foe slain entails on the slayer a new penalty of retribution for himself and his ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various

... had been done by common cut-throats. Knox then wrote a letter to the kirk-session, saying that Kirkcaldy's defence proved him "to be a murderer at heart," for St. John says that "whoso loveth not his brother is a man-slayer"; and Kirkcaldy did not love the man who was killed. All this was apart from the question: had Knox called Kirkcaldy a common cut-throat? Kirkcaldy then asked that Knox's explanation of what he said in the pulpit might be given in writing, as his words had been misreported, and Knox, "creeping ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... authentic manner. There was another incident, however, also growing out of this affair, even more irritating and threatening than the invasion itself. In November, 1840, one Alexander McLeod came from Canada to New York, where he boasted that he was the slayer of Durfree, and thereupon was at once arrested on a charge of murder and thrown into prison. This aroused great anger in England, and the conviction of McLeod was all that was needed to cause immediate war. In addition to these complications was ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... Belphin-slayer," the uncle said, dragging him out. "Besides, she loves you. Come on, Ludovick, be a man." So they hauled him off to the wedding and, amid much feasting, ...
— The Blue Tower • Evelyn E. Smith

... all of that to her. The half god—the unmatched wonder. When she watched your coming across the water this morning—I know the look that should go to a slayer of dragons. It seems to me," said the Princess severely, "it is you who ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin

... echoes of pursuit. Ay, dead or not, this was still the enemy. "Time was that when the brains were out," he thought; and the first word struck into his mind. Time, now that the deed was accomplished—time, which had closed for the victim, had become instant and momentous for the slayer. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his loyal valour, his keen young wit, his kindliness, constancy, readiness of service as swift and sure in the day of his master's bitterest shame and shamefullest trouble as in the blithest hour of battle and that first good fight which won back his father's spoils from his father's slayer; but more than all these, for that lightning of divine rage and pity, of tenderness that speaks in thunder and indignation that makes fire of its tears, in the horror of great compassion which falls on him, the tempest and storm of a beautiful and ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... In thy lips the speech of man whence Gods were fashioned, In thy soul the thought that makes them and unmakes; By thy light and heat incarnate and impassioned, Soul to soul of man gives light for light and takes. As they knew thy name of old time could we know it, Healer called of sickness, slayer invoked of wrong, Light of eyes that saw thy light, God, king, priest, poet, Song should bring thee back to heal us with thy song. For thy kingdom is past not away, Nor thy power from the place thereof ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... shaken hills the guns their drumming thunder roll— But the keen blades thrill with the lust to kill that leaps from the slayer's soul! ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis

... you are not an Indian, I presume," said I, with a heavy sense of conviction about what I gave expression to. "Indian virtue is not white men's virtue. If it won you rank, and riches, and power, to become a mighty slayer, a slayer you would undoubtedly become. A man, even an Indian, is what his circumstances make him. The only way I can conceive to make a first-class man, is to place him under first-class influences. I am generalizing now, of course; the exceptions ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... and this added another drop of bitterness to a cup which was already overflowing. None the less, he was confident that the judge would do his duty as he saw it. It was a merciless thing to do—to make this just judge the slayer of the friend of his youth; but at the end Blount reached for the telephone-book and began to search for the chief justice's residence number. Before he could find it the ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... demolished the ornaments, images, and altarpieces as well as the monasteries and religious houses in Perth—an example quickly followed by others throughout the country. In Scott's novel, The Fair Maid of Perth, the church is the scene of the trial by bier-right to discover the slayer of Proudfute. ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story

... allusions in the papyrus which must not be passed over in silence. One is the allusion to "Qazairnai, the lord of Asel," the famous slayer of lions. We know nothing further about this Nimrod of Syria, but Professor Maspero is doubtless right in believing that Asel ought to be written Alsa, and that the country meant was the kingdom of Alasiya, which lay in the northern ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce

... what I can do for you," said the doctor. "I have been sent opportunely to your relief. Know me as the renowned slayer of caymans!" ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... hid the stars. One day this evil one rose up and slew a harmless white settler. The wise men of the tribe took counsel together, saying, 'times are changing, we will turn him over to the law of the white men.' The ears of the Little Tiger may have heard whispered the name of the white settler's slayer." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... gathered possession? Let him be spoiled. He hath given full proof of transgression.' They said. 'Who is irked by the Law? Though we may not remove it, If he lend us his aid in this raid, we will set him above it!' So the robber did judgment again upon such as displeased him, The slayer, too, boasted his slain, ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling

... Camous!" bellowed the Bull, snorting indignantly; "he's but a slayer and a thief. All the Paleface Long Knives are that; killing, killing—stealing, stealing. Why, even among his own kind he is called 'Camous'; and you, who were bred in the Man ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser

... heads low and rushed tearingly to the next cover. The leopard was heard sighing every night, and saw their pad marks next day; but only twice did we catch glimpses of them. One morning we came upon the fresh-killed carcass of a female lesser kudu from which, evidently, we had driven the slayer. ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... Aaron Burr could hardly fail of that, though the said Joel Barlow is not the poet-diplomat who wrote the "Columbiad" and shone in European courts, nor Aaron Burr the corrupter of Blennerhassett and the slayer of Alexander Hamilton. At least, I judge they were not, for this Barlow and this Burr had cobbling charges against them as late as 1840, when the intriguing Aaron and the gifted Joel no longer needed earthly repairs. Nevertheless, ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine

... neighbor. "It's Prince Villardo whom we saw last night in the play!" And the alcalde, in the character of giant-slayer, rose ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... summoned those pretty babes from the Wood, the two Tennysons. But alas for Chatterton! the vision will not hold: he disappears from his chair at the feast, like Banquo—"and, when all's done, you look but on a stool." The ghost of the slayer of himself, after long haunting Strawberry Hill, to rebuke the senile complacency of the chronicler of royal and noble authors, repaired, after the death of that prosperous man of wit and fashion, to his native town, to prowl ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... meet in second battle The slayer of the Vandals, and fell slaughter followed. The prows were set to land, And the ships steered even to the marches of the shires At the ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson

... nothing is said of an enforced seclusion, at least after the ceremonial cleansing, but some South African tribes certainly require the slayer of a very gallant foe in war to keep apart from his wife and family for ten days after he has washed his body in running water. He also receives from the tribal doctor a medicine which he chews with his food. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... word on the line about Apollo the snake-slayer, which my friend Professor Colvin condemns, believing that the God of the Belvedere grasps no bow, but the Aegis, as described in the 15th Iliad. Surely the text represents that portentous object (qou^rin, deinh/n, a'mfida/seian, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... I got into Leavenworth, sometime in July, I was interviewed for the first time in my life by a newspaper reporter, and the next morning I found my name in print as "the youngest Indian slayer on the plains." I am candid enough to admit that I felt very much elated over this notoriety. Again and again I read with eager interest the long and sensational account of our adventure. My exploit was related in a very graphic manner, and for a long time afterward I was considerable ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... doubt, but more than one Lipan shook his head. The reputation of Murray as a slayer of game was too high to be questioned, and he had taught Steve Harrison like ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard

... purposes of marriage a number of exogamous groups or septs exist which may be classified according to their nomenclature as titular and totemistic, many having also the names of other castes. Examples of sept names are: Powar, a Rajput sept; Dokra, an old man; Marte, a murderer or slayer; Sarodi, the name of a caste of mendicants; Mhali, a barber; Kaode, a crow; Chambhade, a Chamar; Gujde, a Gujar; Juade, a gambler; Lamchote, long-haired; Bodke, bald-headed; Khatik, a butcher; Chandekar, from Chanda; Dambhade, one having ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... Thus charged, O slayer of thy foes, The cow from whom all plenty flows, Obedient to her saintly lord, Viands to suit each taste, outpoured. Honey she gave, and roasted grain, Mead sweet with flowers, and sugar-cane. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... reservation:—"Only it must be poured straight off before it gets like ink.... Oh, stop!—it's too black already. A little hot water, thank you!" And then Mrs. Thrale, in cold blood, actually stood her Rockingham teapot on the hob; to become an embittered deadly poison, a slayer of the sleep of all human creatures above a certain standard of education. When all other class distinctions are abolished, this one will remain, like the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... celebrate games, which they said should be held in that neighborhood every three years. This festival was ever after celebrated thus; and when the people gathered together there to see the racing and boxing, they loved to recall the memory of the brave lion slayer, and of the seven kings who had first celebrated the ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber

... The slayer of the old she-wolf was the hero of the time; but he bore his laurels modestly, though exaggerated accounts of the affair were published all over the colonies, and even in England, where they were exploited in the public prints. By rising to the occasion, and doing ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... of your slaves," interposed Giaffar, in a great fright, "represent at the footstool of your highness a true picture of what we may anticipate. Doubtless this lion-slayer of Shitan, being famished, will not forget our prophecy, and ascribing its fulfilment to our bad omens, will, in his mood, sacrifice us ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... but little occasion for grief in the temporary separation which I am sure will precede our final union. But this dreadful deed, Mark—it is this that makes me sad. The knowledge that you, whom I thought too gentle wantonly to crush the crawling insect, should have become the slayer of men—of innocent men, too—makes my heart bleed within, and my eyes fill; and when I think of it, as indeed I now think of little else, and feel that its remorse and all its consequences must haunt you for many years, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... owing to the uncertainty of public sentiment, he could not guarantee the half-breed's safety if McFann were lodged in the county jail. Consequently the slayer of Bill Talpers remained in jail at the agency, under a strong guard of Indian police, supplemented by trustworthy ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman

... moderation, for one excessive fault he instituted one excessive punishment; for he made it lawful without trial to take away any man's life that aspired to a tyranny, and acquitted the slayer, if he produced evidence of the crime; for though it was not probable for a man, whose designs were so great, to escape all notice; yet because it was possible he might, although observed, by force anticipate judgment, which the usurpation itself would then preclude, he gave a license to any to anticipate ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... killed by Booth (Jno. Wilkes), an actor. I suppose his purpose is to live in history as the slayer of a tyrant; thinking to make the leading character in a tragedy, and have his performance acted by others ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... common murderer. Nor were they who interested themselves in the matter the ordinary rag, tag, and bobtail of the people,—the mere wives and children, or perhaps fathers and mothers, or brothers and sisters of the slayer or the slain. Dukes and Earls, Duchesses and Countesses, Members of the Cabinet, great statesmen, Judges, Bishops, and Queen's Counsellors, beautiful women, and women of highest fashion, seemed for a while to think of but little else than the fate of Mr. Bonteen ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... the showerer, the slayer of the malevolent, profound, mighty, of impenetrable sagacity, the dispenser of prosperity, the enfeebler, firm, vast, the performer of pious acts, Indra has given birth to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... Mohammed, sacrificed 100 animals to ransom the life of his son, forfeited by a rash vow, and from that time the greater became the legal number. The Somal usually demand 100 she-camels, or 300 sheep and a few cows; here, as in Arabia, the sum is made up by all the near relations of the slayer; 30 of the animals may be aged, and 30 under age, but the rest must be sound and good. Many tribes take less,—from strangers 100 sheep, a cow, and a camel;—but after the equivalent is paid, the murderer or one ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... fair Panchala swiftly drove across the plain, Marked his father's cruel slayer, marked ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous

... primitive times the serpent was the special emblem of Kneph, the creator of the world, and was regarded as a sort of good genius. It is still so regarded by the Chinese, who make of it one of their most beautiful symbols, the dragon. Later it became the emblem of Set, the slayer of Osiris; and after that it was looked upon with horror as the enemy of mankind, the destroyer, the evil principle. Hence, in Egypt, the Hebrew captives adopted the serpent as emblematical of evil, and later ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... was a serious matter, and punishment was meted out to the slayer or he was freed by his fellow citizens. Far from courts of justice and surrounded by men to whom death was often merely an incident in a career of crime, the settlers were forced to depend upon themselves to keep peace on the border. They acted ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller

... the interest I had taken in his fate. I never felt in a more melancholy mood than when I rode from his solitary prison." This is a good illustration of Irving's tender-heartedness; but considering Burr's whole character, it is altogether a womanish case of misplaced sympathy with the cool slayer of Alexander Hamilton. ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... banks of the creek, on the west. The men at that end of the line turned, and ran, stooping, to face the attack. Matt Doyle was fatally shot, through the breast. Tom McCaslin, springing to drag him to cover, and get sight of his slayer, if possible, received ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... mystic journey. Man slew man, beast slew beast, and insect devoured insect. The tiny red beetle that he had placed upon the rose bush existed only by the death of the aphides which were its prey; the spider, too, preyed. But man was the master slayer. It was jungle law—the law of the wilderness miscalled life; which really was not life but a ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... was an act of violence, unjust, as violence must be, and offensive, as injustice is, to the power behind life. The blood of the dead king, and of all those killed in fighting for him, calls upon that power, and asks justice of it. Slowly, in many secret ways, the tide sets against the slayer, till he is a worn, old, heart-broken, haunted man, dying with the knowledge that all the bloodshed has been useless, because the power so hardly won will be tossed away by his successor, the youth with "a weak mind and an able body," the "good, shallow young fellow," ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... and so became Father," replied Anak, "since none dared challenge the slayer of Degar Astok. Is it not possible that Esle, who was young and who favored Uglik in those days, made a mistake? Despite his death, Degar Astok still ...
— B. C. 30,000 • Sterner St. Paul Meek

... concerted fighting. For aught the men knew, the enemy might be attempting all four sides of the square at once. Their business was to destroy what lay in front of them, to bayonet in the back those who passed over them, and, dying, to drag down the slayer till he could be knocked on the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... speech of ghosts. The beasts are also friendly, as fellow children with men of Ti-ra-wa. To the Morning Star the Skidi or Wolf Pawnees offered on rare occasions a captive man. The ceremony was not unlike that of the Aztecs, though less cruel. Curiously enough, the slayer of the captive had instantly to make a mock flight, as in the Attic Bouphonia. This, however, was a rite paid to the Morning Star, not to Ti-ra-wa, 'the power above that moves the universe and controls all things.' ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... interesting fact is that Cain had been his brother's keeper though he declined responsibility for him. He refused to be responsible for his brother's life, but he certainly was responsible for his brother's death. He refused to be his brother's keeper, but he was willing to be his brother's slayer. There are plenty of people to-day who are trying to maintain this same impossible theory of social irresponsibility. They affirm that they have no social duty except to mind their own business; but that very denial of responsibility is what makes ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody

... his purpose better than the finest argument. Heated by passion the people thought no more of the dead charcoal-burner but only of his slayer, and made a movement to surround me. My last hope had failed, but I stood on guard, my one regret being that the cowardly Peleton would not trust himself within ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... killed himself, the hand with which the deed was committed was cut off, and buried in another place to that in which the other part of the body was interred. If one man killed another in a righteous cause, the slayer washed his hands and held up the weapon that had been used towards the sun, with the blood on it, to show that he feared not though the heavens as well as the earth knew what he had done. The ancients were of ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... selfish; this I pray you to believe. Moreover, seeing as God giveth me to know, the ends I dream of are to be wrought by fair means alone. As a thing of conscience, I would rather die with thee than be thy slayer. My mind is firmly set as thine; though thou wert to offer me all Rome, O tribune, and it belonged to thee to make the gift good, I would not kill thee. Thy Cato and Brutus were as little children compared to the Hebrew whose law a Jew ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... manner, "you have heard me speak of Burke's father, the boyhood companion with whom, when the finny tribes were eager, I sometimes strayed from the strait and narrow path that led to school. Burke, Hynes is the sportsman here—our tiger-slayer. He beards in their lairs those Tammany ornaments of the bench whom the flippant term 'necessity Judges,' because of their slender acquaintance ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... respected out of regard for his son-in-law, who, on the maternal side, had kindred in high places under the Commonwealth, a fact of which Hyacinth occasionally reminded her husband, telling him that he was by hereditary instinct a rebel and a king-slayer. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... killing of the chief sent his father to his bed sick with grief, and he grew content only when he heard that the king's hand had slain him and that he had fallen on his face at his slayer's feet. For when a dying man fell thus it was a sign that he would ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... that his father was not seizing the present opportunity to distinguish himself with any noticeable avidity. He had expected to see that conqueror of bad men and cow-towns, the somewhat ruthless but always manful slayer of one-eye Murphy, descend from his cart with astonishing alacrity, and heedless in his tried courage stride down into the darkness beyond the slaughter-house. But Mr. Shrimplin did nothing of the sort, he made no move to quit his seat. Surely something had gone ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... the living,—wife or daughters,—what were they in comparison with the dead, the murdered son who lay unburied still, in compliance with his father's earnest wish, and almost vowed purpose, of having the slayer of his child sentenced to death, before he committed the body to the rest ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... complete code. It governed all matters, civil and military. It prescribed rules of war; it fixed the salaries of officials; it designated the exact amount of blood money the family of a slain man might collect from the family of the slayer; it regu lated conditions under which individuals might travel from one village to another; it governed matters of property transfer ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... existed in the days of Norden (circa 1548-1626). The church—near which the old stocks may still be seen—is E.E., with the embattled western tower so frequent in Herts. It is locally famous for a tomb in the N. wall, said to mark the resting-place of one Piers Shonkes, a serpent slayer who lived in the time of William I. The tomb bears some allegorical figures, which have been the subject of diverse interpretations. Pelham Hall (E. E. Barclay, Esq.), "a slight but well contrived House in this Mannor, near the Church," was built in 1620 by one Edward Newport. ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins

... undoubtedly, of the wounded man to whose aid he has been summoned, with the added injunction, "Bring morphia," showing that little further can be done for him, whoever he may be, than to smooth his passage into the Beyond by the aid of the Pain Slayer. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... in ancient times. Murder was punishable by beating the culprit to death with clubs (ki tangon ki lymban). The killing, however, of a nong shoh noh, i.e. a man who seeks for human victims to sacrifice to the monster, u thlen, is not considered murder, even now by the Khasis, and the slayer of the nong shoh noh only has to inform the Siem and deposit Rs. 5, and one pig in the Siem's court. The slaying of a robber also is ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... great plainness in writing and speech, and one of the founders of Universalism in New England, whose Seasonable Thoughts was in opposition to the preaching of Whitefield; and Aaron Burr (1716-1757), father of the political opponent and slayer of Alexander Hamilton, and author of The Supreme Deity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. James Blair (1656-1743), of Virginia, the virtual founder and first president of William and Mary College, wrote Our Saviour's Sermon on the Mount, containing one hundred and seventeen sermons. The two Tennents, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... will pray," said the holy man; "I will wrestle in prayer. Ah that he could slay the wicked, and reward the proud according to his deservings! Ah that he could rid me and my master, and my young lady, of this son of Belial,—this devourer of widows and orphans,—this slayer of the poor and needy, who fills this place with innocent blood,—him of whom it is written, 'They stretch forth their mouth unto the heaven, and their tongue goeth through the world. Therefore fall ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... cast a quick inquiring glance at Peter, but the lad was evidently innocent of any double meaning. It was only a movement, within the man-slayer, of that conscience which "makes cowards ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... with a yell on Wakawa's back! The tall chief, stabbed to the heart, lies low; But his left hand clutches his deadly foe, And his red right clinches the bloody hilt Of his knife in the heart of the slayer dyed. And thus was the life of Wakawa spilt, And slain and slayer lay side by side. The unscalped corpse of their honored chief His warriors snatched from the yelling pack, And homeward fled on their forest track With their bloody burden ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... casts the head down as soon as ever they parted, for he dared not do so while their eyes were on him. They fared along till they met some men down by Markfleet, and told them the tidings. Skarphedinn gave himself out as the slayer of Sigmund and Grim and Helgi as the slayers of Skiolld; then they fared home and told Njal the tidings. He answers them, "Good luck to your hands! Here no self-doom will come to pass ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... strange that cheeks that were steeped in red should grow withered as an old stick, and hair that was black as ebony should turn as spangled as a starry sky? How should ought else but what is fashioned of brass or stone strive to outlast the splendour of a tree? Who but man himself is the slayer of his youth? Why was I angered at ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various

... contrasted with the more vigorous but still thoroughly womanly character of Christiana. Great-Heart is too much of an abstraction: a preacher in the uncongenial disguise of a knightly champion of distressed females and the slayer of giants. But the other new characters have generally a vivid personality. Who can forget Old Honesty, the dull good man with no mental gifts but of dogged sincerity, who though coming from the Town of Stupidity, four degrees beyond the City ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... confused while James eyed the pattern of the gun. Then he heard the man's contemptuous laugh and saw him pull the trigger. The hammer refused to move. It was so rusted that the weapon was quite useless. For a moment the desperado's eyes sought the pale face of his would-be slayer. A devilish smile lurked in their depths. Then he held out the pistol for the other to take, while his whole manner underwent a ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... to a soul in torment! The babe is already motherless. Isabel can never return, mother; she is with the dead. I am not waiting idly here for her; I am waiting busily—for her slayer. He has fled; but when he sees he is not pursued he will come back to the spot,—to the black, black hole. He cannot help it. I know that. Oh, how well I know it! And the moment he comes he is caught,—caught in the web of ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable

... bear witness— that would please Commodus almost as much as to see gladiators killed in the arena. If you wept over the death of Sextus, that would please him even more. He would enjoy your feelings. Do you remember how he picked two gladiators who were brothers twins they were—and when the slayer of his twin-brother saluted, Commodus got down into the arena and kissed him? You yourself must announce to him the news of Sextus' death, and he ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... interest excited by the examples of simplicity, endurance, and sagacity which formed the subjects of Cooper's pen. In "The Pioneers," "The Last of the Mohicans," "The Prairie," "The Pathfinder," and "The Deer-slayer" figures the character of Leatherstocking, than whom no fictitious personage has a greater claim to interest. His bravery, resolution, and woodland skill make him a type of the hardy race who pushed westward the reign ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... claim the secret of making a perfect infusion of the celestial leaves. He is no longer the embodiment of Tom Moore's Heroic Guebre, this tea-vending Irani, and his apron forbids the suggestion that he has any association with Gao, the subverter of a monarchy and the slayer of the tyrant Zuhhac. He has sadly degenerated from the type of his Guebre ancestor. If he owns a shop he combines the sale of other commodities with the tea business. He has an ice-cream, a sherbet and a "cold-drink" department; and he touts for ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... thinking of a millionaire like White, the victim of Thaw. If he speaks of the hopelessness of feeble-mindedness, he is thinking of some stunted creature gaping at hopeless lessons in a poor school. He is not thinking of a millionaire like Thaw, the slayer of White. And this not because he is such a brute as to like people like White or Thaw any more than we do, but because he knows that his problem is the degeneration of the useful classes; because he knows that White would never have been a ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... of Constabulary had shot and killed the head man of Tinglayan some miles north of Bontok. He was arrested, of course, and when we came through was awaiting trial. But a deputation had come in to wait on Mr. Forbes, and ask for the slayer, so that they might kill him in turn, with proper ceremonies. Naturally the request was refused; but these people could not understand why, and went off in a state of sullen discontent. Here, again, was a conflict ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... mind's eye the "High Court" that would try the alleged slayer of John Turk; a court dominated by the dead man's friends; a court where witnesses and jurors would be terror-blinded against the defendant and where a farce would be staged: a sacrifice ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... story about animals: universal interest in puzzles, in the science of ratiocination, is not more pronounced than the interest in rationalizing the brute. "The Mottled Slayer" and "The Elephant Remembers" offer sympathetic studies of struggles in the animal world. Mr. Marshall's white elephant will linger as a memory, even as his ghost remains, longer than the sagacious play-fellow of Mr. Gilbert's little Indian; but nobody ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... reference to Mimi's spring where Odin left his eye as a pledge; and an enumeration of his war-maids or Valkyries. Turning to the future, the Sibyl prophesies the death of Baldr, the vengeance on his slayer, and the chaining of Loki, the doom of the Gods and the destruction of the world at the coming of the fire-giants and the release of Loki's children from captivity. The rest of the poem seems to be later; it ...
— The Edda, Vol. 1 - The Divine Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 12 • Winifred Faraday

... Had Mrs. Snedden been killed by the carbonic oxide? Was it a case of gas poisoning? Then, too, why had she been here at all? Who had shut her up? Had she been overcome first and, in a stupor, been unable to move to save herself? Above all, what had this to do with the mysterious phantom slayer that had wrecked so much of the works in less than ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve

... lunatic. Wilkes Booth I knew. He was drunk, had been drunk all that winter, completely muddled and perverted by brandy, the inheritant of mad blood. Czolgosz, the slayer of McKinley, and the assassin of the Empress ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson



Words linked to "Slayer" :   strangler, liquidator, suicide, choker, individual, public executioner, manslayer, person, executioner, throttler, felo-de-se, regicide, slay, murderer, garroter, exterminator, killer



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com