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Spear   Listen
verb
Spear  v. t.  (past & past part. speared; pres. part. spearing)  To pierce with a spear; to kill with a spear; as, to spear a fish.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Spear" Quotes from Famous Books



... end. In as far as Jack could make out, the expedition at its start very much resembled the formation seen when a flock of wild geese passes overhead, winging its flight toward the South in the fall or toward Canada in the spring, making a triangle, or spear head, with an old gander at the apex in ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach

... heart of the great Cistercian monastery that this chronicle of old days must take its start, as we trace the feud betwixt the monks and the house of Loring, with those events to which it gave birth, ending with the coming of Chandos, the strange spear-running of Tilford Bridge and the deeds with which Nigel won fame in the wars. Elsewhere, in the chronicle of the White Company, it has been set forth what manner of man was Nigel Loring. Those who love him may read herein those things which went to his making. Let us go back ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... every person was ordered to attend prayers; but just as they were embarking, about twenty naked savages made their appearance, running and hallooing, and beckoning the strangers to come to them; but, as each was armed with a spear or lance, it was thought prudent to hold no communication with them. They now proceeded to the northward, having the continent on their left, and several islands and reefs on ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... point of Indian Island, named so on this occasion. We should have passed without seeing them, had not the man hallooed to us. He stood with his club in his hand upon the point of a rock, and behind him, at the skirts of the wood, stood the two women, with each of them a spear. The man could not help discovering great signs of fear when we approached the rock with our boat. He however stood firm; nor did he move to take up some things we threw him ashore. At length I landed, went up and embraced him; and presented him with ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... of midnight hath perished. He shivered in the glare of the mountain, He screamed upon the sea-swords, His bowels rushed out upon the lances of the Wind. I shall look through the eye of Mountain, I shall set in my scabbard the sabre of Sea, And the spear of Wind shall be my hand's delight. I shall not descend from the Hill. Never go down to the Valley; For I see, on a snow-crowned peak, The glory of the Lord, Erect as Orion, Belted as to his blade. But the roots of the mountains mingle with mist. And raving skeletons run ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... amongst savage tribes; for he himself was a missionary of many years standing. He told how once he and a companion had been sent to a nation, who named themselves the Sons of Fire because their god was the lightning, if indeed they could be said to boast any gods other than the Spear and the King. In simple language he narrated his terrible adventures among these savages, the murder of his companion by command of the Council of Wizards, and his own flight for his life; a tale so interesting and vivid that even the bucolic sleepers ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard

... landscapes of New England. The prospects of the whole world are there, so that somewhere every wanderer can find the countryside of his own home repeated. And, by the same token, that is exactly what makes a good deal of it so startling. When a man sees a file of spear-armed savages, or a pair of snorty old rhinos, step out into what has seemed practically his own back yard home, he is even more startled than if he had encountered them in ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... of their tusks constitutes the wealth of the Equatorial Province. So greatly they abound that Emin Pasha is provoked to complain of a pest of these valuable pachyderms [LIFE OF EMIN PASHA, vol.i chapter ix.]: and although they are only assailed by the natives with spear and gun, no less than twelve thousand hundredweight of ivory has been exported in a single year [Ibid.] All other kinds of large beasts known to man inhabit these obscure retreats. The fierce rhinoceros crashes through ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... looked such a little dot on the wilderness, as we drove back to it, that a spear of terror pushed its way through my breast as I realized that I had my babies to bring up away out here on the edge of this half-settled no-man's land. If only our dreams had come true! If only the plans of mice and men didn't go so aft agley! If only the ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... the overture, and roused her energy, as if Ithuriel's spear had pricked her. She came down dressed, to listen at one of the upper entrances, to fill herself with the musical theme, before taking her part in it, and also to gauge the audience and ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... waters subside, they take up their abode on shore. Their only vegetable food is what they obtain from the palm-trees, and they subsist generally on turtle, tortoises, and the flesh of the manatee or cowfish, and other fish, which they spear or take with nets. Some of the young women were pretty good-looking, and wore scant petticoats made of the cabbage palm leaves, but the men had on little more than a belt round the waist with a few ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... devotion and impurity. Their exterior worship consisted of hymns, prayers, and sermons; the hymns extremely ludicrous, and often indecent, alluding to the side-hole or wound which Christ received from a spear in his side while he remained upon the cross. Their sermons frequently contained very gross incentives to the work of propagation. Their private exercises are said to have abounded with such rites and mysteries, as we cannot explain with ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... assistance of Andromeda, but lies down for a nap while awaiting the arrival of the dragon. The beast approaches; Elizabeth dares not awaken Yegory, but a "burning tear" from her right eye arouses him. He attacks the dragon with his spear, and his "heroic steed" (which is sometimes a white mule) tramples on it, after the fashion with which we are familiar in art. Then he binds Elizabeth's sash, which is "five and forty ells in length," about the dragon's jaws, and bids the maiden have three churches built in honor ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... sincerity, of a boy pursuing sport. Hence this 'child-like simplicity,' the last perfection of his other excellencies. His was a mighty spirit unheedful of its might. He walked the earth in calm power: 'the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam;' but he wielded ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... ancient chivalry, of which he was exceedingly fond, and found that, on every occasion on which this oath had been used, Chanticleer had always crowed a second time. "Perdition seize the naughty fowl," he muttered, "I have seen the day when, with my stout spear, I would have run him through the gorge, and made him crow for me an 'twere in death!" He then retired to a comfortable lead coffin, and stayed ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde

... afield Low water-meads are in his ken, And lonely pools by Harrow Weald, And solitudes unloved of men, Where he his fisher's spear dips down: Little he knows ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various

... thunder-god. March on to ruin! Spurned and disowned—the basest of the base— And with thee bear this burden: o'er thine head I pour a prophet's doom; nor throne nor home Waits on the sharpness of the levelled spear: Thy very land of refuge hath no welcome; Thine eyes have looked their last on hollow Argos. Death by a brother's hand—dark fratricide, Murdering thyself a brother—shall be thine. Yea, while I ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... race have been bound before him. The women and children taunt him, jeer at him, strike him even. The warriors do not. They will presently do more than that. Some busy themselves building a fire near by; others bring pieces of flint, spear points, jagged fragments of rock, and heat them in it. The prisoner, dusty, torn, parched with thirst, and bleeding from many wounds, looks on with perfect indifference. Snoqualmie comes and gazes at him; the ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... good, I hope. Don't make me laugh, Buster, Your probable center will spear it. If there's ever more than one star in any confusion you set up, I'll eat all the extras. But there's a dozen Big Brains here, gnawing their nails off up to the wrist to talk to Adams all the rest of the night, so put him on and let's get back to sleep, huh? ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith

... terrible! He paweth in the valley; he exulteth in his strength, And rusheth into the midst of arms. He laugheth at fear; he trembleth not, And turneth not back from the sword. Against him rattle the quiver, The flaming spear, and the lance. With rage and fury he devoureth the ground; He will not believe that the trumpet soundeth. At every blast of the trumpet, he saith, Aha! And snuffeth the battle afar off,— The thunder of the ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... take me to the mountain, O, Past the great pines and through the wood, Up where the lean hounds softly go, A-whine for wild things' blood, And madly flies the dappled roe, O God, to shout and speed them there; An arrow by my chestnut hair Drawn tight and one keen glimmering spear Ah! if ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... up to the green canopy, overthrew so many of them, that the elder knights began to arm, and I grew most joyful as I met them, and no man unhorsed me; and always I broke my spear fairly, ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris

... nothing but a halfgrown black pig, or shoat. He was not in much of a hurry either, and gave no evidence of ferocity, yet it is said that this insignificant looking animal is dangerous when hunted with the spear —the customary way. After an early dinner at the chateau we returned to Florence, and my venison next day arriving, it was distributed among my American friends ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... glimmered white, Flashed the spear and fell the stroke— Ah, what faces pale and bright Where the ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell

... of two such arms endure. Now, at the time, and in the appointed place, The challenger and challenged, face to face, Approach; each other from afar they knew, And from afar their hatred changed their hue. So stands the Thracian herdsman with his spear, Full in the gap, and hopes the hunted bear, And hears him rustling in the wood, and sees His course at distance by the bending trees: And thinks, Here comes my mortal enemy, And either he must fall in fight, or I: This while he thinks, he lifts aloft his dart; A generous chillness seizes every ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden

... time of the cave-dweller, who was clothed in shaggy hair instead of in broadcloth or silk, prehistoric man learned that the best arrow or spear was that tipped with the best piece of flint. In brief, to do good work, you must have good tools. Translated into the terms of today, this means that the expert or specialist must be preferred to the untrained. In nearly all walks of life this truth ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... and in the tympanum of the pediment are the royal arms. On the acroteria of the pediment are three statues by John Smyth, viz.—Mercury on the right, with his Caduceus and purse; On the left Fidelity, with her finger on her lip, and a key in her hand; and in the centre Hibernia, resting on her spear, and holding her shield. The entablature, with the exception of the architrave, is continued along the rest of the front; the frieze, however, is not decorated over the portico. A handsome balustrade surmounts the cornice of the building, which is 50 feet from the ground. With the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various

... conflicts. The wise old Greeks chose for the protectress of Athens the goddess of Wisdom, and whilst they consecrated to her the olive branch, which is the symbol of peace, they set her image on the Parthenon, helmed and spear-bearing, to defend the peace, which she brought to earth. So this heavenly Virgin, whom the Apostle personifies here, is the 'winged sentry, all skilful in the wars,' who enters into our hearts and fights for us to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... against the penalties of knowledge. Like animals subjected to the rigours of an Arctic climate, and putting forth more fur with each reduction in the temperature, man's hide of courage thickened automatically to resist the spear-thrusts dealt him by his own insatiate curiosity. In those days of which we speak, when undigested knowledge, in a great invading horde, had swarmed all his defences, man, suffering from a foul dyspepsia, with a nervous system in the latest stages ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... special fact connected with the Lord's resurrection which we must not forget. He never appeared to any but his own. They, only, had eyes to see him. Some may wonder why he did not go out into the streets of Jerusalem and there, to gaping crowds, show his risen form with the nail prints and the spear mark still fresh in his hands and his feet, and in his side. In answer to this I have but little to say, more than that he was ever averse to casting pearls before swine or giving that which is holy unto dogs. I will add this, however, that ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... faculty taught him to govern and direct nature to his own benefit, and make her produce food for him when and where he pleased. From the moment when the first skin was used as a covering; when the first rude spear was formed to assist in the chase; when fire was first used to cook his food; when the first seed was sown or shoot planted, a grand revolution was effected in nature, a revolution which in all the previous ages of the earth's history had had no ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... I confess I was somewhat startled, thinking it was a signal for some of his companions to come and attack us; but he assured me that it was done merely with a view to ascertain what success we were likely to meet with on our present journey. He then dismounted, laid his spear across the road, and having said a number of short prayers, concluded with three loud whistles; after which he listened for some time, as if in expectation of an answer, and receiving none, told us we might proceed without fear, for there was no danger. About ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park

... could brain every assailant on the first appearance of his head. How serious, then, the necessity of being able to know that the occupant of the chamber slept—that occupant being Guy Rivers. The pursuers well knew what they might expect at his hands, driven to his last fastness, with the spear of the hunter at his throat. Did he sleep, then—the man who never slept, according to the notion of his followers, or with ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... of Mr. John Mardon, Mr. Sidney Humphries, Mr. Bolt, and Mr. H.J. Spear (Secretary), representing the Chamber of Commerce and Shipping, waited on the Postmaster-General, at the House of Commons, London, respecting the imperfect service, and they did not fail to point out to him (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) the time-table ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs

... fireball, Shann ran swiftly to take up a new position, downgrade and to the east of the domes. Here he put into action another of the primitive weapons Thorvald had devised, a spear hurled with a throwing stick, giving it double range and twice as forceful penetration power. The spears themselves were hardly more than crudely shaped lengths of wood, their points charred in the fire. Perhaps these missiles could ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... with them also, as with the Aztecs, the future was dependent on the character or mode of death rather than the conduct of life. He who died the "straw-death" on the couch of sickness looked for little joy in the hereafter; but he who met the "spear-death" on the field of battle went at once to Odin, to the hall of Valhalla, where the heroes of all time assembled to fight, eat boar's fat and drink beer. Even this rude belief gave them such an ascendancy ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... manor pointed to the time when each castle was a walled city, each baronial hall the home of a crowd of petty retainers. In that long-ago, what multitudes of voices had stirred the silence of the court-yard! The bare walls of the apartments then were hung with breast-plate, spear, and cross-bow,—trophies of war and the chase furnished decorations suited to the taste of the occupants, and the hides of slaughtered beasts carpeted the cold floor. Stirring tales of love and warfare gathered little knots of listeners; wandering ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... wounded hands and feet! O heart, with spear thrust torn! O brow, with blood drops falling down, Beneath the stinging thorn! O Jesus, Lord divine, Why ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various

... child, scil.:—Corc Duibhne, the son of Cairbre, son of Conaire, son of Mogha Lamha whom Cormac held as a hostage from the Munstermen, and whom he had given for safe custody to Oengus. When Oengus reached Tara he beheld Ceallach sitting behind Cormac. He thrust his spear at Ceallach and pierced him through from front to back. However as he was withdrawing the spear the handle struck Cormac's eye and knocked it out and then, striking the steward, killed him. He himself (Oengus) with his foster ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous

... the chain, half-hidden by the people, but shewing his shoulders and his head, a man in a friar's cowl. And, towering as high as the gallows, painted green as to its coat and limbs, but gilt in the helmet and brandishing a great spear, was the image called David Darvel Gatheren that the Papist Welsh adored. This image had been brought there that, in its burning, it might consume the friar Forest. It gazed, red-cheeked and wooden, across the sunlight space at the pulpit of the Bishop of Worcester in his white ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... to the protector of the city to grant him a quiet age there, or dedicates his ship, to dance no more "like a feather on the sea," now that its master has set his weary feet on land.[22] The fisherman, ceasing his labours, hangs up his fish-spear to Poseidon, saying, "Thou knowest I am tired." The old hunter, whose hand has lost its suppleness, dedicates his nets to the Nymphs, as all that he has to give. The market-gardener, when he has saved a competence, ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... wouldn't understand what to do, and he should have to see to the horses,—and it was too late, and it was likely they had carried off all the syrup. But he thought a minute, as they all stood in silence and gloom; and then he guessed they might find some sugar at Deacon Spear's, close by, on the back road, and that would be better than nothing. Mrs. Peterkin was pretty cold, and glad not to wait in the darkening wood; so the eight little boys walked through the wood-path, Hiram leading the way; and slowly ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale

... they decided that they must have a Negrito head, and so took their brother-in-law's. Pig-stealing, by the way, in the mountain country is regarded much as horse-stealing used to be out West. Besides the spear and head knife, the Ilongots, like the Negritos, with whom they have intermarried to a certain extent, use the bow and arrow, and are correspondingly dreaded. For it seems to be believed in Luzon that bow-and-arrow savages are more dangerous than spear-and-ax-men; that the ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... by his courage, and it was with a heart full of ambitious projects that he rode one day into a great city not far from the Fairy's castle. As he had set out intending to hunt in the surrounding forest he was quite simply dressed, and carried only a bow and arrows and a light spear; but even thus arrayed he looked graceful and distinguished. As he entered the city he saw that the inhabitants were all racing with one accord towards the market-place, and he also turned his horse in the ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... south of France, had it not been for the costume and language. The only clothing the men wore was a sash, and a sort of a turban, made out of the bark of the fig tree. They were armed, as they always are, with a long spear, a small hatchet, and a shield. The women also wore a sash, and a small narrow apron that came down to their knees. Their heads were ornamented with pearls, coral beads, and pieces of gold, twisted among ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... where they died, but some were buried. They said a ship "having three masts had been crushed by the ice out in the sea to the west of King William's Island." One old man made a rough sketch of the coast-line with his spear upon the snow; he said it was eight journeys to ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... Barbarian followers; and such was the weakness of the government, that the two generals decided their private quarrel in a bloody battle. Boniface was successful; but he received in the conflict a mortal wound from the spear of his adversary, of which he expired within a few days, in such Christian and charitable sentiments, that he exhorted his wife, a rich heiress of Spain, to accept Aetius for her second husband. But Aetius could not derive any immediate advantage from the generosity of his dying enemy: he was proclaimed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... keep back the coming of right and justice to their sex, when such women as Lucy Stone and others are giving their lives to the cause? She is no more a woman than we. Some men say, with the one in Colorado: "Now, I'm agin suffrage. I believe that the Almighty made one spear for wimmin and one spear for men, and I b'l'eve that the wimmin orter keep to her'n, and the men ort to keep to his'n;" and I agree. But who shall decide as to "spears?" Are the men alone ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... nets. They extracted oil from fish and from the seeds of the sunflower,—the latter, apparently, only for the purposes of the toilet. They pounded their maize in huge mortars of wood, hollowed by alternate burnings and scrapings. Their stone axes, spear and arrow heads, and bone fish-hooks, were fast giving place to the iron of the French; but they had not laid aside their shields of raw bison-hide, or of wood overlaid with plaited and twisted thongs of skin. They still used, too, their primitive breastplates ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... excellent group for a statuary. While their shaven heads were adorned with the helmet crest and eagle plume, they bore round their necks ornaments of the gayest kind. A magnificent cloak of buffalo-skin adorned their shoulders, while a spear, shield, tomahawk, bow and quiver, formed their arms. Leggings, moccasins, with wampum garters tied below the knee, completed, with the waist-cloth, their attire. Three fine horses were tied to an adjoining tree, showing that they were in every way ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... cease? Truly, there is nothing can pacify heaven but this, and nothing can appease thy conscience on earth but this too. If you find any accusation against you consider Christ hath, by a sacrifice for sin, condemned sin in his own flesh. The marks of the spear, of the nails, of the buffetings of his flesh,—these are the tokens and pledges, that he encountered with the wrath due to your sins, and so hath cut off all the right that sin hath over you. If thou canst unfeignedly ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... hand—effect of a gunshot clearly; and, as if my sight had been made more acute by this discovery, I perceived also the seam of an old wound, beginning a little below the temple and going out of sight under the short grey hair at the side of his head—the graze of a spear or the cut of a sabre. He clasped his hands on his stomach again. "I remained on board that—that—my memory is going (s'en va). Ah! Patt-na. C'est bien ca. Patt-na. Merci. It is droll how one forgets. I stayed on that ship thirty hours. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... work with prayer. They have the finest hilts and scabbards, and are besung as invested with a charm or spell, and symbolic of loyalty and self-control, for they must never be drawn lightly. He is taught fencing, archery, horsemanship, tactics, the spear, ethics and literature, anatomy, for offence and defense; he must be indifferent to money, hold his life cheap beside honor, and die if it is gone. This chivalry is called the soul of Japan, and if it fades life is vulgarised. It is a code ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... treacherous creatures, these icebergs. You may be paddling along by a peaceful looking berg, sleeping on the water as mild and harmless as a lamb; when suddenly he will take a notion to turn over, and up under your canoe will come a spear of ice, impaling it and lifting it and its occupants skyward; then, turning over, down will go canoe ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young

... industry and care employed by them in building places so well adapted for defence, almost without the use of instruments, should not by the same means, have led them to invent a single weapon of any importance, with the sole exception of the spear they throw with the hand. They do not understand the use of a bow to throw a dart, or of a sling to fling a stone, which is the more astonishing, as the invention of slings, and bows and arrows is far more simple than the construction of these works by the people, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... enough," said Brown, with gentle severity. "Gougou will never be cold and hungry again while there's a stick of wood to be cut on the shores of this lake, or any game to bag, or a 'lunge to spear through the ice. We get about two days' lumbering a week down by St. Ignace. No use to work more than two days a week," he explained, jocosely. "That gives us enough to live on; and everybody around here owes us from fifty to a hundred dollars back pay for work, anyhow. I've bought ...
— The Cursed Patois - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... own arms, spear, kris and buckler, supplemented by an old English "Tower" musket, or rifle, or by one of Chinese manufacture with an imitation of the Tower mark. The parang, or chopper, or cutlass, is always carried by a Malay, being used ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... its infant or very young state, has stalks trailing upon the ground, and protruding rootlets throughout their whole extent; its leaves are spear-shaped, and it bears neither flower nor fruit; this is termed ivy creeping on the ground. The same plant, when more advanced, quits the ground, and climbs on walls and trees, its rootlets becoming holdfasts only; its leaves are generally three or five lobed, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various

... they both would die. The next day, the prince went to the forest, and saw the sisters sitting there, under the oak. One of them was holding a golden egg in her hand, and just as she tossed it into the air, he hurled his spear. It hit the egg, and broke it—the giantesses fell ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban

... fishing is interesting. The fish in that region will not rise to bait but are captured by cutting a hole in the ice and dropping in a piece of ivory carved in the shape of a small fish. When the fish rises to examine this visitor, it is secured with a spear. The Eskimo fish spear has a central shaft with a sharp piece of steel, usually an old nail, set in the end. On each side is a piece of deer antler pointing downward, lashed onto the shaft with a fine line, and sharp ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... earth or upon the rusted red ruin of an old cook stove, and he drank the saffron water of the lake out of a dipper made of a gourd, faring and fending for himself, a master hand at skiff and net, competent with duck gun and fish spear, yet a creature of affliction and loneliness, part savage, almost amphibious, set apart from his ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... deposition of a magistrate of Sheffield, James Wilkinson, that a democrat named Widdison had made several pikes and sold twelve to Gales, a well-known Jacobinical printer. Further, that a witness, William Green, swore that a man named Jackson had employed him and others to make spear-heads; they made twelve dozen or more in two days, and the heads were sent to the lodgings of Hill and Jackson. Wilkinson wrote for instructions how to deal with these men; also for a warrant to arrest Gales. On 20th May Dundas sent down warrants for the arrest of Gales, W. Carnage, H. Yorke ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... of a villain who did a great deal of mischief here last year. There is my house; they have left scarcely anything but the four walls. They said they came for our good; but let them come back again . . . we will watch them, and spear them like wild boars in the wood." The poor man's house certainly exhibited traces of the most atrocious violence, and he shed tears as he ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... 'Lo now, O Poseidon, if the kind gifts of the Cyprian goddess are anywise pleasant in thine eyes, restrain Oinomaos' bronze spear, and send me unto Elis upon a chariot exceeding swift, and give the victory to my hands. Thirteen lovers already hath Oinomaos slain, and still delayeth to give his daughter in marriage. Now a great peril alloweth not of a coward: and forasmuch as men must die, wherefore ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar

... obedience cannot be received with any hope of success, that he shall be "provided with full powers to negotiate a peace between the French Republic and Great Britain, and to conclude it definitively between the TWO powers." With their spear they draw a circle about us. They will hear nothing of a joint treaty. We must make a peace separately from our allies. We must, as the very first and preliminary step, be guilty of that perfidy towards our friends and associates ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... fell upon the next of kin, with the help and under the supervision of the rest of the immediate kindred. He had to see that a spear was carried in front of the funeral of the slain man and planted in his grave, which must be watched for three days.(110) He must make proclamation of the foul deed at the tomb, and must undergo purificatory ...
— On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay • Hugh E. Seebohm

... erecting a spear wherever an auction was held is well known, it is said to have arisen from the ancient practice of selling under a spear ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... on him by the fact that he was now made to don a black domino and mask, and to march, carrying a tin-headed spear, with a file of similar figures to examine the candidate, who turned out to be the discharged Stevens, sitting in an anteroom, foolish and apprehensive, and looking withal much as he had done in the counting-room. He was now asked by the leader of ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... with God and with men,' than in the Authorised rendering. His victory with God involved the certainty of his power with men. All his life he had been trying to get the advantage of them, and to conquer them, not by spear and sword, but by his brains. But now the true way to true sway among men is opened to him. All men are the servants of the servant and the friend of God. He who has the ear of the emperor ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... before his mind as it had continually risen during the last five years. Five years had gone since he saw it, and those five years he spent in India and Egypt, that is with the exception of six months which he passed in hospital—the upshot of an Arab spear thrust ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... returned, with a second round of cocktails the biscuits were in a perpendicular row, twelve of them, like a collection of primitive spear-heads. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... devilish fierce object with his shaggy, massive head, his green-fire eyes, and his huge jaws holding Luki. I let go of Luki's foot and bethought myself of the gun. But as I lay there on my side, before attempting to rise, I made a horrible discovery. I did not have my rifle at all. I had Luki's iron spear, which he always had near him. My rifle had slipped out of the hollow of my arm, and when the lion awakened me, in my confusion I picked up Luki's spear instead. The bloody brute dropped Luki and uttered a roar that shook the ground. It was then I felt frightened. ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... Indian women, were stored for winter wear and to fill the sledges with warmth and comfort when the northwest wind freezes the snow to fine dust and the aurora borealis moves in stately possession, like an army of spear-men, across the northern sky. The harvests of the colonists, the corn, the wool, the flax; the timber, enough to build whole navies, and mighty pines fit to mast the tallest admiral, were stored upon the wharves and in the warehouses of the Bourgeois upon ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... am told on good colour-authority that there is a lovely purplish bloom, almost like plum-bloom, over certain copses in the valley; by taking thought, I have observed the long horizontal arms of the beech growing spurred with little forked branches of spear-shaped buds, and I see little green nipples pushing out through the wolf-coloured rind of the dwarf fir-trees. Spring is arming in secret to attack the winter—that is sure enough, but spring in secret is no spring for me. I want to see her ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne

... into the river and swam across. The tribe now advanced against them, and two shots were fired in self defence, one of which accidentally wounded a gin. Three men from the camp hearing the firing came up, and one more native was shot, who was preparing to spear one of the men. The natives retreating, the men went in search of the bullock-drivers, whom they found endeavouring to raise a bogged bullock: their timely arrival probably saved these men's lives, as ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... that the French monzies [Note: Probably monsieurs. It would seem that this was spoken during the apprehensions of invason from France.—Publishers.] sall rise as fast in the glens of Ayr, and the kenns of Galloway, as ever the Highlandmen did in 1677. And now they are gripping to the bow and to the spear, when they suld be mourning for a sinfu' land and a ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... ship. In length it was no more than twelve feet three inches, but the body measured eight feet round. Among the vast quantity of things contained in the stomach was a tolerably large seal, bitten in two, and swallowed with half of the spear sticking in it, with which it had probably been killed by the natives. The stench of this ravenous monster was great, even before it was dead; and, when the stomach was opened, it ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... to crown our glory, Get we trophies, to display As vouchers for our story, And mementoes of this day! Once more, then, to the grottoes! Gather each one all he can— Blister'd blade with Arab mottoes, Spear-head, bloody yataghan. Give room now to the raven And the dog, who scent rich fare; And let these words be graven On ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... achievements, we ought certainly to find in the pictures of Rubens (1577-1640) an adequate expression of the tendencies and aspirations of the Counter Reformation in Belgium. Compared with the religious pictures of the Van Eycks and of Van der Weyden, such works as the "Spear Thrust" (Antwerp Museum), "The Erection of the Cross" and the "Descent from the Cross" (Antwerp Cathedral) form a complete contrast. There is no trace left in them of the mystic atmosphere, the sense of repose and of the intense inner tragedy which pervade the ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... achieve this, for the Barbarians are not valiant in fight, whereas ye have attained to the highest point of valour in that which relates to war: and their fighting is of this fashion, namely with bows and arrows and a short spear, and they go into battle wearing trousers and with caps 32 on their heads. Thus they are easily conquered. Then again they who occupy that continent have good things in such quantity as not all the other nations of the world together possess; first ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... of our meeting will be, that thou shalt not be left alive to tell the tale;" and with that he caught up a spear and hurled it at Hrut's ship, and the man who stood before it got his death. After that the battle began, and they were slow in boarding Hrut's ship. Wolf, he went well forward, and with him it was now cut, now thrust. Atli's bowman's name was Asolf; he sprung up on Hrut's ship, and was ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... early paragraphs of the sixteenth, ignominiously lost hold. My mouth was empty; there was not one word of "Treasure Island" in my bosom; and here were the proofs of the beginning already waiting me at the "Hand and Spear"! Then I corrected them, living for the most part alone, walking on the heath at Weybridge in dewy autumn mornings, a good deal pleased with what I had done, and more appalled than I can depict to you in words at what remained for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... ill puddling in the cockatrice's den, and that they run hazards that hunt the wild boar. The man also that writeth Mr. Badman's life had need be fenced with a coat of mail, and with the staff of a spear, for that his surviving friends will know what he doth; but I have adventured to do it, and to play, at this time, at the hole of these asps; if they bite, they bite; if they sting, they sting. Christ sends his lambs in the midst of wolves, not to do like them, but to suffer by them ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... think what God did for thee; On Good Friday He hanged on a tree, And spent all His precious blood; A spear did rive His heart asunder, The gates He brake up with a clap of thunder, And Adam and ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... the water line, runs a strong gallery, in which the rowers sit cross-legged. At the after-part of the boat is a cabin for the chief who commands, and the whole of the vessel is surmounted by a strong flat roof, upon which they fight, their principal weapons being the kris and spear, both of which, to be used with effect, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... frowned down effectually, one by public opinion and the other by the police. It is only of late years that they finally succumbed to those twin discouragers; but it seems altogether improbable that the ordeal by combat in either shape will again come to the surface in a land where tilting-spear and quarter-staff were of old so rife. In France chivalry still asserts, in a feeble way, the privilege of winking and holding out its iron, and refuses to be comforted with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... making such great professions of his powers, I have seen at another time making, in sober truth, an involuntary exhibition of himself, which was a far better spectacle. He was a marine on board a ship which struck a transport vessel, and was armed with a weapon, half spear, half scythe; the singularity of this weapon was worthy of the singularity of the man. To make a long story short, I will only tell you what happened to this notable invention of the scythe spear. ...
— Laches • Plato

... boys in camp march up and down to some distance from the camp. The old women keep on singing, and one man with a spear painted red with a waywah fastened on top, walks up and down in the middle of the crowd of men, holding the spear, with its emblematic belt of manhood, aloft; as he does so, calling out the names of the bends of the creek, beginning with the one nearest ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker

... a sword and with a spear and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... quarters he had selected for his own refuge, but sends home in it people to whom he is grateful. In Ireland we find a wind blowing from hell. King Loegaire tells Patrick, "I perceived the wind cold, icy, like a two-ridged spear, which almost took our hair from our heads and passed through us to the ground. I questioned Benen as to this wind. Said Benen to me, 'This is the wind of hell which has opened before Cuchulainn.'" Lebar na huidre, p. 113 a. This "wind of hell" makes one think of the sweet-scented wind ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous

... may be said to be the bow and arrow, but the Caffre scorns this warfare, or indeed any treachery; his weapons are his assaguay, or spear, and his shield; he fights openly and bravely. The Caffres also cultivate their land to a certain extent, and are more cleanly and civilized. The boors on the Caffre frontier were often plundered by the bushmen, and perhaps occasionally by some few of the Caffres ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... accomplish the most difficult part of his journey, across a waterless desert, so hot that the very birds could not live in it. Horse and rider were both dying of thirst, and Rustem, dismounting, could scarcely struggle along while he supported his steps by his spear. When he had almost given up all hope, he saw a well-nourished ram pass by. "Where," said he to himself, "is the reservoir from which this creature drinks?" Accordingly he followed the ram's footsteps, holding his horse's bridle in one hand and his sword in the other, and the ram led him to ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... resurrection and ascension, remember always that the background to His triumph is—a tomb. Remember that it is the triumph over suffering; a triumph of One who still bears the prints of the nails in His hands and in His feet, and the wound of the spear in His side; like many a poor soul who has followed Him triumphant at last, and yet scarred, and only not maimed in the hard battle of life. Remember for ever the adorable wounds of Christ. Remember for ever that St John saw in the midst of the throne of God the likeness of a lamb, ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... while pig-sticking in Morocco, being but an indifferent spear. During convalescence he read "Under Two Flags," and approved the idea; but when he learned that the Spahi cavalry was not recruiting Americans, and when, a month later, he discovered how much romance did not exist in either the First or Second ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... huts, of the shape of half an egg. They do not make pottery, and neither keep herds nor till the ground, contenting themselves with such food as wild fruits and roots and the animals they kill with spear or arrow or capture in traps. They do not mutilate or bedaub their bodies (though the Andamanese indulge in a kind of "tattooing"). Among them the struggle for life does not exist in its more brutal forms. They take care of the sick and feeble, the children, and the old people. Cannibalism is ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... cooled myself with coffee and a pipe, and returned, advancing into the hut where sat the king, a good-looking, well-figured young man of twenty-five, with hair cut short, and wearing neat ornaments on his neck, arms, fingers and toes. A white dog, spear, shield, and woman—the Uganda cognizance—were by his side. Not knowing the language, we sat staring at each other for an hour, but in the second interview Maula translated. On that occasion I took a ring from my finger and presented it to the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... the general, as he pulled at the bows of his rather soiled white tie, and evened them, "My world—" the general jabbed the poker spear-like into the floor, "I guess I'm a kind ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... Staff Major in Paris. At the opening of the war with Dahomey in 1892, I was sent in command of the Engineers of the Corps Expeditional, and on the 17th of November of that year was severely wounded at Dakar in Dahomey, having received a spear cut through the lungs. On this occasion I had the distinction of being promoted as Major of Engineers and was created an Officer of the Legion of Honor on the battle field. The wound in my lungs was of such a serious character ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train

... directly in front of him, so much so, that we should have run the risk of killing him had we ventured to fire. His cry startled the deer, and off they went fleet as the wind, we being left with the task of bagging Master Bruin. Dango had a spear in his hand and a hatchet in his belt. He instinctively threw forward his left arm to receive the attack of the brute, who was upon him before he could present his spear's point. He dropped it therefore, and felt for his hatchet. With a fierce ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... will be remembered with gratitude long after the name of the Sweet Singer of Michigan shall have rotted in oblivion. He recognized and stuck to his proper spear. (This is a little mirthful ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... one irritable guard, "if we buzzed a spear at the persistent stranger, or if one slung at him ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... another desperate effort to reach it, when first one and then another of the Malays hurled his spear, which went through the air in a ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... growl and flashing eyes the wolf warned the Indian back. Black Snake pointed his flint-headed spear with a look of disdain at the heart of the watchful beast. His arm was suddenly arrested by the hand of the ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah

... who accosted them was evidently of consequence. His dress was to a certain degree Mahometan, but mixed up with Malay; he carried arms in his girdle and a spear in his hand; his turban was of printed chintz; and his deportment like most persons of rank in that country, was courteous ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... the woodes waxen green Leaf and grass and blossom spring in Averil, I ween, And love is to my herte gone with a spear so keen, Night and day my blood it drinks my herte doth ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... time came for the Prince to start, the King gave him a spear called the Eight-Arms-Length-Spear of the Holly Tree (the handle was probably made from the wood of the holly tree), and ordered him to set out to subjugate the Eastern Barbarians as the Ainu ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... forefront of the battle, was slain, the Romans turned their backs and fled before the Sabines, even unto the gate of the Palatine. Then King Romulus (for he himself had been carried away by the crowd of them that fled) held up his sword and his spear to the heavens, and cried aloud, "O Jupiter, here in the Palatine didst thou first, by the tokens which thou sentest me, lay the foundations of my city. And lo! the Sabines have taken the citadel by wicked craft, and have crossed the valley, and are come up even hither. But ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church

... Rich garments were worn by princes, and their palaces glittered with the precious metals. Copper was hardened so as to be employed in weapons of war. The warriors had chariots and horses, and were armed with sword, dagger, and spear, and were protected by helmets, breastplates, and greaves. Fortified cities were built on rocky elevations, although the people generally lived in unfortified villages. The means of defense were superior to those of offense, which enabled men to preserve their acquisitions, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... itself did not produce one for the purpose,) a Roman dress of white satin was hired from the theatre, with which she was invested—her head covered with a red cap, ornamented with oak leaves— one arm was reclined on a plough, the other grasped a spear—and her feet were supported by a globe, and environed by mutilated emblems of seodality. [It is not possible to explain this ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... it brings A hurricane of rain; he, shudd'ring, sees, And drives his flock beneath the shelt'ring cave: So thick and dark, about th' Ajaces stirr'd, Impatient for the war, the stalwart youths, Black masses, bristling close with spear ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... its feasibility, and Wanganchi might have been remembered as an enlightened thinker and enthusiastic advocate of the rights of the masses if he had not been called upon to carry out his theories. But the proof of experience, like the touch of Ithuriel's spear, revealed the practical value of his suggestions, and dissolved the attractive vision raised by his perfervid eloquence and elevated enthusiasm. His honesty of purpose cannot, however, be disputed. On being ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... bees for a barrel of syrup. I have experienced this so often, and in many cases so touchingly, that I cannot refrain from recording it. Among others who thus took to me was the giant Jim, who was unto Paxton and me as the captive of our bow and spear, albeit an emancipated contraband. When the Southerners defied General Butler to touch their slaves, because they were their "property" by law, the General replied by "confiscating" the property by what ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... With beamy spear or biting ax, To right and left he thrust and smote— Ah! what a change! no sinewy thwacks Fall from ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... diagonally from the lower hoist side corner; the upper half is white, bearing the brown silhouette of a large shield with crossed spear and club; the lower half is a diagonal blue band with a green triangle ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... our honeymoon in New York. At first I had thought of going somewhere to the great lonely woods, where I could have walked under the great trees and felt the silence of nature, and where John should have been my Viking and captured me with his spear, and where I should be his and his alone and no other man should share me; and John had said all right. Or else I had planned to go away somewhere to the seashore, where I could have watched the great ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... guilty, and give their lives unjustly. Should a soko try to take another's wife he is publicly punished by the tribe. These animals have a great sense of humour and fully enjoy a practical joke. Strangely enough, they never attack women and children, but if any man approaches them with a spear or gun, they try to rush upon him, often at the expense of their own life, and wrest the weapon from him. Most of them are exceedingly kind and civilised in their actions, and natives always say, "Soko is a man, and nothing bad ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... I. Since love's spear is for woe and his shield for joy. Why, I know of but one thing that could have lost ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... of the day. The Prince rode forth with a boar spear to hunt one of these monsters of the wood, of which vague reports had reached him, unconfirmed, till Adam de Gourdon had undertaken to show him the creature's lair. He had proposed to Richard to join the hunt; ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a movement down the line of men. They stood as a cliff looks at the tide. He dared them. He called them cowards— women—weaklings afraid of blood. But they stood still. He strode up and down the line, seeking a man with heart enough to plunge a spear into him, and no ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... I have seen the Dagda's throne In sunny lands without a tear And found a forest all my own To ward with magic shield and spear, Where, through the stately towers I rear For my desire, around me go Immortal shapes of beauty clear: They do not ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis

... made at Jalula where men were afraid, For death was a difficult trade, and the sword was a broker of doom; And the Spear was a Desert Physician who cured not a few of ambition, And drave not a few to perdition with medicine bitter and strong: And the shield was a grief to the fool and as bright as a desolate pool, And as straight as the rock of Stamboul when their cavalry thundered ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker

... remember, that this enemy is not for him to fight against alone, and that his own strength and skill will make but a slender opposition unto it. It will laugh at the shaking of his spear; it can easily insinuate itself, on all occasions, because it lieth so near and close to the soul, always residing there, and is at the believer's right hand whatever he be doing, and is always openly or closely opposing, and that with great facility; for ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... has to say about "Courage" is worth listening to, for he was a truly brave man in that sphere of action where there are more cowards than are found in the battle-field. He spoke his convictions fearlessly; he carried the spear of Ithuriel, but he wore no breastplate save that ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes



Words linked to "Spear" :   protrude, fishgig, shaft, jut, spearhead, weapon system, barb, king's spear, spike, lance, empale, rig, stick out, fishing rig, leister, spear carrier, assagai, harpoon, spear thrower, project, spear thistle, arm, spear up, spear-point



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