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Stab   Listen
verb
Stab  v. t.  (past & past part. stabbed; pres. part. stabbing)  
1.
To pierce with a pointed weapon; to wound or kill by the thrust of a pointed instrument; as, to stab a man with a dagger; also, to thrust; as, to stab a dagger into a person.
2.
Fig.: To injure secretly or by malicious falsehood or slander; as, to stab a person's reputation.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Stab" Quotes from Famous Books



... fire fell o'er the bare young heart, And he who watched in one mad bound foresaw How blood indeed might flash across that breast. The high resolve grew dim in that fierce light, "'Tis noble, strong;" then, in a stab of keen Humor, he saw again a native brave Decking his naked body with the coat Crowned with the hat of some sea-faring man,— Aping the civilization of his stride Till his new prowess fell to comrade's jeers. ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay

... one side meditatively. "I'll make a stab at it," he acceded, and then paused, while they waited ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... a small square part above. The shape is of old date, but continued, especially by the Danes, for the advantage of the quarter-guns, by the ship's being contracted abaft. Also, one of the many names for the minnow.—To pink, to stab, as, between casks, to detect men ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... development of the gregarious and social instincts; and so travellers have observed that the moral is the last step in mental progress. His Moors are the savage Dankali and other negroid tribes, who offer a cup of milk with one hand and stab with the other. He translates literally the Indian word Hathi (an elephant), the animal with the Hath (hand, or trunk). Finally he alludes to the age of active volcanoes, the present, which is merely temporary, the shifting of the Pole, and the spectacle ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... Nor was this refused. That same night, by the light of a lamp, they exhumed the body of Templeton, much reduced, but enveloped with his clothes; only they observed that the other red slipper was wanting. On examining the body, they could trace the evidence of a sword-stab through the heart. All this they kept to themselves; and that same night they contrived to get the sexton of the Canongate to inter the body as that of a rebel who had been killed, and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... the sanctuary to the front, all the characters following)—Now, while all thoughts are deadened in my heated brain, but those of fury and revenge—thus treason falls, and the vile traitress dies. [Seizing Agnes, and going to stab her with ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various

... been passing for gold value. He saw many bits of his recent work, as products of intellectual foppery. He recalled a letter recently received from an editor; which read: "That last article of yours has caught on. Do six more like it." He hadn't felt the stab before. He had done the six—multiplied his ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... with this, most treacherously, hid in the shades of Night, he met me in the Hall of this false Woman, and stab'd me, which did secure his flight with her; and wouldst thou have ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... Death! is the sole penalty for traitors raging to destroy you It is the only one that strikes terror into them. Follow the example of your implacable enemies! Keep always armed, so that they may not escape through the delays of the law! Stab them on the spot or blow their brains out!"—"Twenty-four millions of men shout in unison: If the black, gangrened, archi-gangrened officials dare pass a bill reducing and reorganizing the army, citizens, then you build eight hundred scaffolds in the Tuileries garden and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... lives and thrives," said the host. "But, kinsman, I would not have you call him Tony Fire-the-Fagot, if you would not brook the stab." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... and machinery; Your plot, too, has such scope for Scenery! 10 Your dialogue is apt and smart; The play's concoction full of art; Your hero raves, your heroine cries, All stab, and every body dies. In short, your tragedy would be The very thing to hear and see: And for a piece of publication, If I decline on this occasion, It is not that I am not sensible To merits in themselves ostensible, 20 But—and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... way Bowles tells it, he must have knocked him down so incessantly in the next five minutes that Von Blitz's attempts to stand up were nothing short of a stutter. Moreover, he wouldn't let Von Blitz stab him worth a cent. Bowles says he's got Von Blitz cowed, and the whole town is walking in circles, it's so dizzy. Von Blitz's wives threaten to kill the lawyer, but I guess they won't. Bowles says that ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... said Clorinda, mocking; "but not by women. And it may be that my pride is so high that I must be worshipped by a woman too. You would always love me, sister Anne. If you saw me break the law—if you saw me stab the man I hated to the heart, you would think it must ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... midst of luxury': to such it will be clear that, for a pure moral nature, the loss of his religious Belief was the loss of everything. Unhappy young man! All wounds, the crush of long-continued Destitution, the stab of false Friendship and of false Love, all wounds in thy so genial heart, would have healed again, had not its life-warmth been withdrawn. Well might he exclaim, in his wild way: 'Is there no God, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... not an argument; that is a stab. I fancy you are altogether skeptical about woman. Do you believe in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... cruel and perfidious defamation; every rancorous knave—every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend half-a-crown or three shillings, may skulk behind the press of a newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in the kingdom, without running the least hazard of detection or punishment.' The scribblers who had of late shewn their petulance were not always obscure. Such scurrilous ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... kept him under the closest guard and accompanied him wherever he went. But in spite of this there were a few mild outbreaks. One day a stone was hurled at him. Another time some half-crazed wretch tried to stab him; and once a pit was dug across the road, in which his horse broke a leg, so that it had to be shot. This last nearly brought Derby to the point of meting out punishment to the offenders. Yet when he realized again the sufferings ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... without diverting one's attention to what might be done or to how it all came about. They don't seem to feel how beautiful it all is." And he concentrated himself on contemplation of the landscape, his delight brought home by a stab of reluctance to leave. ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee

... chamber of the duchess. All of them were stained with blood. The duke had changed his clothes, and had tried to wash those he took off in the pail whose bloody water he had thrown away. Subsequently it was conjectured that his purpose had been to stab his wife in her sleep, and then by a strong pull to bring down upon her the heavy canopy. The bolt he had unscrewed permitted him at dead of night quietly to enter ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... persons could compare with Mrs. Gaunt in native magnanimity; yet how ungenerous a stab had she given. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... upward out of this page studying you, dear friend, whoever you are,) How solemn the thought of my whispering soul to each in the ranks, and to you, I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul, O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend, Nor the bayonet stab what you really are; The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best, Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never kill, Nor the bayonet stab ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... of the room, but Arthur's troubles were not over yet. King John began to think that Arthur, even without his eyes, was too dangerous a prisoner to keep on his hands; and he suggested to a knight named William de Bray that he should stab ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae

... of the assembled Court. As he advanced to pay his respects to the sovereigns, he encountered Bassompierre, whom he greeted with a smile of more than usual cordiality; and the Duc de Guise, to whom he addressed a few words of courteous recognition; but the one felt that the smile was a stab, and the other that the greeting was ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... wrestling, just as any true Cornishman will. But I was wrong in doing this. My father had told me never to trust a Tresidder, and I did trust him to wrestle fairly, even although he had tried to kill my sheep. While I wrestled, merely for the pleasure of wrestling, I felt a stab at my side, and I knew that a knife had entered my flesh ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... knew that I knew he was there. Then commenced a series of pantomimic feats impossible to describe adequately. He threw an imaginary person (myself, of course) upon the floor, and proceeded to stab him several times with a paper-folder, which he caught up for the purpose. After disposing of his victim in this way, he was not satisfied, for the dull lecture still went on in the other room, and he fired an imaginary revolver several times at an imaginary head. Still, the droning speaker ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... stab one gives in childhood to one's parents' tenderest feelings! I did not mean to be ungrateful, and I had no measure of the pain my father felt at this hint of the insufficiency of all he did for my comfort and pleasure at home. ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... backward, composedly hindering the brutal onslaught he was powerless to check. Then Eglamore ran him through the chest and gave vent to a strangled, growling cry as Alessandro fell. Eglamore wrenched his sword free and grasped it by the blade so that he might stab the Duke again and again. He meant to hack the abominable flesh, to slash and mutilate that haughty mask of infamy, but Graciosa clutched ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... somewhat restored, and headed for the shower. When it was running nicely and he was under it, he started to sing. But his voice didn't sound as much like the voice of Lauritz Melchior as it usually did, not even when he made a brave, if foolhardy stab at the Melchior accent. Slowly, he began to ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... with equal grace and agility. At length she drew out the dagger, and dancing with it in her hand, she surpassed all she had yet done, by her light movements and high leaps; sometimes presenting the dagger as if to strike, and at others holding it to her own bosom, as if to stab herself. At length, as if out of breath, she took the tabor from Abdalla with her left hand, and holding the dagger in her right, she held out the tabor to Ali Baba, who threw a piece of gold into it. Morgiana then held the ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... to their dwellings. They are placed at a considerable angle, and would impale an intruder in the groin or upper thigh, inflicting a cruel and disabling wound. The shorter spikes either cut through the bottom of the foot or stab the instep or leg near the ankle. They are much dreaded, and, though ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... like Phalaris's. One would be apt to imagine that a portion of it had descended upon some of his translators. The gentleman has given a broad hint more than once in his book, that if I proceed further against Phalaris, I may draw, perhaps, a duel, or a stab upon myself; a generous threat to a divine, who neither carries arms nor principles fit for that sort of controversy. I expected such usage from ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... hoarse menaces of murder, the shaking of the boughs was construed into the brandishing of poniards, and every shadow of a tree became the apparition of a ruffian eager for blood. In short, at each of these occurrences he felt what was infinitely more tormenting than the stab of a real dagger; and at every fresh fillip of his fear, he acted as a remembrancer to his conductress, in a new volley of imprecations, importing, that her life was absolutely connected with his opinion ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... they got awfully good. You know when you thrust at the Germans—so—if you miss him, you bring your rifle back sharp, with a round swing, so that the butt comes up and hits up under the jaw. It's one movement, following on with the stab, you see, if you miss him. It was too quick for them—But bayonet charge was worst, you know. Because your man cries out when you catch him, when you get him, you know. ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... Wellyn's the skull was fractured in two places. In Sherrett's the right arm was broken, and there were some contusions on the head; but the cause of death was a stab that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... Union or produce coercion.' Jefferson, deaf to the admonition, pressed on, and, like Diomede at the siege of Troy, wounded a divinity when he thought he was contending only with fellow men. With his Kentucky Resolutions he gave the first stab to the Union and the Constitution. What were Burr's childish schemes, which would have fallen to the ground from their own weakness, compared with that? From Jefferson through Calhoun to Jefferson Davis the diabolic succession of conspirators ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... of night perhaps?—why, day Came back again for that! before it left, The dying sunset kindled through a cleft: The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay, Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,— "Now stab and end the ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... her as he had turned away five years ago, with the same hopeless sense of dishonour and defeat. She called him back, as she had called him back five years ago, and for the same purpose, of delivering a final stab. Only that this time she knew it was a stab; and her own heart felt the pain as she ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... editing the Journal des Bouches-du-Rhone, was not so lucky. His occupation and his visit to me laid him under suspicion of possessing dangerous opinions, and his friends urged him to fly; but it was too late. He was attacked at the corner of the rue de Noailles, and fell wounded by a stab from a dagger. Happily, however, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... word to him," said Mowbray; "I believe that he no more realized the fact that you would direct the muzzle of a pistol toward his breast, than that you would stab ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... Every word was a stab in March's heart, so weakly tender to his own; his wife's tears, after so much experience of the comparative lightness of the griefs that weep themselves out in women, always seemed wrung from his own soul; if his children suffered in the least through him, he felt like a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... hair and stab yourself because you have a rival. You say that your mistress deceives you for another; it is your pride that suffers; but change the words, say that it is for you that she deceives him, and behold, you ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... would make a pariah of the writer of this particular anonymous letter. True or not, what was it to her? What right had she to interfere? She was cowardly; of that Patty was certain. True friends are the last in the world to inflict sorrow upon us. Kith and kin may stab us, but never the loyal friend. Now that she thought it all over, she was glad that she had repeatedly fought the impulse to lay the matter before her sister. She would trace this letter home first; she would find ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... him the look that was like a stab, not of anger but of desire; of the intense, over-powering desire to see in, to see through, to understand everything: every thought, emotion, purpose; every impulse, every hesitation inside that man; inside that ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... charm thee from each, And I charm thee from all. Thy freedom's complete As a Blade of the Huff, To be cheated and cheat, To be cuff'd and to cuff; To stride, swear, and swagger, To drink till you stagger, To stare and to stab, And to brandish your dagger In the cause of your drab; To walk wool-ward in winter, Drink brandy, and smoke, And go fresco in summer For want of a cloak; To eke out your living By the wag of your elbow, By fulham and gourd, And by baring of bilboe; To live ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... compared the love, the faith, and the honor of this woman whose husband had committed a crime with that one night's indiscretion of Mrs. Becker. It was in her eyes and face that he had seen a purity like that of an angel, and the pain seemed to stab him deeper when he thought that, after all, it was the criminal's wife who was ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood

... It was a stab that the blood followed, in its rush to Bradley Headstone's face, as swiftly as if it had been dealt with a dagger. 'What do you mean by that?' was as much as ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... disordered by want of food, and by a convulsive cough, and endeavored to prevent a natural, death; so he took an apple, and asked for a knife for he used to pare apples and eat them; he then looked round about to see that there was nobody to hinder him, and lift up his right hand as if he would stab himself; but Achiabus, his first cousin, came running to him, and held his hand, and hindered him from so doing; on which occasion a very great lamentation was made in the palace, as if the king were expiring. As soon ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... I laughed, thinking of the last poor devil, with his arms pinioned to his side. 'When you've lost enough blood to see it in a lump, stab for it.' ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... confided to Sweetwater, as they stood waiting at the elevator door. "Miss Challoner died from a stab. The next minute she was in this lady's arms. No weapon protruded from the wound, nor was any found on or near her in the mezzanine. What follows? She struck the blow herself, and the strength of purpose which led her to do this, ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... left out. A jealous pang shoots through him like the stab of a knife, or the burning of iron red-hot on his flesh. Yet Eleanor, unconscious of the evil feelings she arouses, takes but little notice of her husband, and hangs upon Carol's words with eager interest, agrees with all he says, prevents him leaving twice ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... is full; 160 Such as take lodgings in a head That's to be let unfurnished. He could raise scruples dark and nice, And after solve 'em in a trice; As if Divinity had catch'd 165 The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd; Or, like a mountebank, did wound And stab herself with doubts profound, Only to show with how small pain The sores of Faith are cur'd again; 170 Although by woeful proof we find, They always leave a scar behind. He knew the seat of Paradise, Could tell in what degree it lies; And, as he was dispos'd, could prove ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... his knees, caught a man by the leg, flung him, and as the fellow clutched his musket, wrenched the bayonet from it and plunged it into his body. While the Frenchman heaved, he pulled out the weapon for another stab, dropped sprawling on his enemy's chest, and the first wave of the storming party broke over him, beating the breath out of him, ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... side as though to squeeze something back, she broke out, "O Mary, Mary, you mustn't scold me! You mustn't bid me tie myself to regular hours till this summer is over. If you knew the intolerable stab when I recollect that he is gone-gone-gone for ever, you would understand that there's nothing for it but jumping up and doing the first thing that comes to hand. Walking it down is best. Oh! what will become of me when the mornings get dark, and I ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of the servants, you can remove the body to any room convenient and make your examination. It's a clean stab into the heart, and it looks to me as if the person who used that knife had some knowledge of anatomy. Most people who strike for the heart get the middle of the left ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson

... to cover him with kisses, hiding her agitation and her remorse under her passionate embraces; but from that moment the wretched woman knew remorse, knew it for the rest of her life; and could never think of her child without feeling a stab ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... practiced me, ever since we began our flight, at the art of fighting with knives, at knife attack in general. In particular he had drilled me, as well as he could without a corpse or dummy to practice on, at the favorite stroke of professional murderers, the stab under the left shoulder-blade, the point of the knife or dagger directed a little upward so as to reach the heart. By this stroke I had killed both my victims, and he one of his. I acknowledged his claims, but was inclined to thank the gods for special aid and favor. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... not spoken so kindly as he might, but had he known his son, he would often have spoken severely. From the habit of seeking clear and forcible expression in writing, he had got into a way of using stronger vocal utterances than was necessary, and what would have been but a blow from another, was a stab from him. But the feelings of Cornelius in no case deserved consideration—they were so selfish. And now he considered that mighty self of his insulted as well as wronged. What right had his father to keep from him—from ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... the premises, would not have been effected, but the planter would merely have an invalid on his hands instead of a worker. Still further, the slaves had recourses of their own, even aside from appeals for legal redress. They might shoot or stab the oppressor, burn his house, or run away, or resort to any of a dozen other forms of sabotage. These possibilities the masters knew as well as the slaves. Mere passive resistance, however, in cases where even that was needed, would generally ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... chafed her; she felt the ire of one who has no right to be angry. It shamed her, moreover, to be reminded of the pretentious spirit which was the origin of this trouble; and to be shamed by her inferiors was to Miriam a venomed stab. Then, again, she saw no way of revenging herself. Had she this morning possessed the power of calling down fire from heaven, Lancashire would shortly have missed one of its ugliest little towns; small doubt ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... leisure in the apartment of Diego Martinez the major-domo of Antonio Perez, Diego asked me whether I knew any of my countrymen who would be willing to stab a person with a knife. He added, that it would be profitable and well paid, and that, even if death resulted from the blow, it was of no consequence. I answered, that I would speak of it to a mule-driver of my ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... burned my hands. I lunged against him—I was almost as surprised as he. I shot, but the stab of heat evidently missed him. The shock of my encounter, short-circuited his robe; he materialized in the starlight. A brief, savage encounter. He struck the weapon from my hand. He had dropped his hydrogen torch, and tried to grip me. But I twisted ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... needle: That was of course the result of our necessity. It was a long thorn—first, a punch in the cloth and like as not a stab in the finger in the bargain, then a withdrawal of the crude needle and a careful threading of the hole with our coarse string, after the fashion of a clumsy shoemaker. Some sewing! ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson

... would have driven up in his buggy, looked at the body, examined the clean, deep wound in the abdomen, shrugged his shoulders, and empanelled a hetrogeneous jury who would have returned a verdict to the effect that "deceased came to his death through a stab wound inflicted by some person to the jury unknown." My friend was not a professional detective, but the recital of his experiences was enough to fill me with new respect for those engaged in the "man hunt" business among the half civilized miners ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... behold, what Is war with those where honour is not! Rama laments Its dead innocents; Herod howls: "Sly slaughter Rules now! Let us, by modes once called accurst, Overhead, under water, Stab first." ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... "Stab my vitals if I didn't think as you was suffocated in that there Black Hole!" He garnished his speech with many other expressions which I am ashamed to remember, far less to write here. "So we all heard aboard the ship. But you're alive, ain't ye now?" he added. ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward

... I might: at least I might love his genius, his wit, his greatness, his sensibility—with a certain conviction that at some fancied slight, some sneer which he imagined, he would turn upon me and stab me. Can you trust the queen? She is not of our order: their very position makes kings and queens lonely. One inscrutable attachment that inscrutable woman has. To that she is faithful, through all trial, neglect, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... suspend "naso adunco" those whom we may not otherwise suspend. But even traitors have rights which white men and white women are bound to respect. We will crush them, if we can, but we will crush them in open field, by fair fight,—not by stealing into their bedchambers to stab them through the heart of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... examination of Mr. Schuyler's body and testified that death was practically instantaneous as a result of a single stab of the short, sharp knife. The knife was produced and identified. It had been carefully taken care of and had been photographed to preserve the faint fingermarks, which were on its handle, and which might or might not be the prints of ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... he looks wolfish, too. I wonder if he really loved the girl. Well, I shall soon have my day. If Braun ever presents that letter in Hamburg the friends there will have received my secret message by our No. II, who goes over this trip. A walk around the docks, and a knife stab in the back will settle Braun. He knows too much to be allowed to run loose in Europe. He would like to spoil our game; he shall spoil his own." And the traitor hastened away to entrap Braun, little dreaming that ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... good birth. Mrs Fanshawe had mentally adopted her as a daughter-in-law. Given the non-appearance of a rival on the scene, her desire would probably be fulfilled, since such sincere liking could easily ripen into love. Just for a moment Claire felt a stab of that lone and lorn feeling which comes to solitary females at the realisation of another's happiness; then she rallied herself and ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... which she raised her comforted eyes to mine made a stab of pain hit me full in the breast. Words that Gregory Goodloe had spoken to me out under the old graybeards were the weapon used. "With your hand in mine I can make this whole community see and know; separated from you—" In all humility I ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... lines to gasoline and oil engines frequently pass over the exhaust pipe. When the machine is at rest, you can stab a small hole in the fuel line and plug the hole with wax. As the engine runs and the exhaust tube becomes hot, the wax will be melted; fuel will drip onto the exhaust ...
— Simple Sabotage Field Manual • Strategic Services

... not a shot comes blind with death, And not a stab of steel is pressed Home, but invisibly it tore, And entered first ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... gone quite through the young man's shoulder. There was a deep cut on his head, and there were half a dozen other stab wounds on his body. George had evidently worked with great rapidity ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... shaken by the Builder. This boastful handiwork of ours, which fails in its terrors for the professional pauper, the sturdy breaker of windows and the rampant tearer of clothes, strikes with a cruel and a wicked stab at the stricken sufferer, and is a horror to the deserving and unfortunate. We must mend it, lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, or in its own evil hour it will mar ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... opposite Brazilian shore. The house was guarded by three wooden figures, "clouterly carved," and powdered with ochre or red wood; two of them, representing warriors in studded coatings of spike nails, with a looking-glass fixed in the stomach, raised their hands as if to stab each other. These figures are sometimes found large as life: according to the agents, the spikes are driven in before the wars begin, and every one promises the hoped-for death of an enemy. Behind them the house ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... fisher-cat, the mink and the ermine, nor of the round-eyed, feathered murderers in the tree-tops—yet that same something told him they were out there among the shadows, under the luring glow of the moon. And a thing happened, all at once, to stab the truth home to him. A baby snowshoe rabbit, a third grown, hopped out into the open close to the cabin door, and as it nibbled at the green grass, a gray catapult of claw and feathers shot out of the air, and ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... had meted out to so many, and was killed by his brothers, Dingaan and Umhlangan, by the hands of one Umbopa. He was murdered in his hut, and as his life passed out of him he is reported to have addressed these words to his brothers, who were watching his end: "What! do you stab me, my brothers, dogs of mine own house, whom I have fed? You hope to be kings; but though you do kill me, think not that your line shall reign for long. I tell you that I hear the sound of the feet of the ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... all through. But I think you might have that decency as to affect some gratitude. 'Deed, and I thought you knew me better! I have not behaved quite well to you, but that was weakness. And to think me a coward, and such a coward as that—O my lass, there was a stab for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in here," he said quietly. It was odd what a sharp little stab at the heart it gave him to see Rose looking so like herself—so like the girl he had hoped in time to make his wife. And yet so different too—so much softer, sweeter, and with a ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... employed for "stab" or "stick" cultivations (Stichcultur), or by inoculating the medium whilst fluid, and allowing to solidify in this position, for ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... David goes along," she said, with an impertinent ring in her voice, and with a conviction that she was administering a stab and a rebuke. She had come prepared to watch her husband and Mrs. Lafirme, her heart swelling with jealous suspicion as she looked constantly from one to the other, endeavoring to detect signs of an understanding between them. Failing to discover such, and loth to be robbed ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin

... the Heresy of God the Avenger, is that kind of miniature God the Avenger, to whom the nursery-maid and the overtaxed parent are so apt to appeal. You stab your children with such a God and he poisons all their lives. For many of us the word "God" first came into our lives to denote a wanton, irrational restraint, as Bogey, as the All-Seeing and quite ungenerous Eye. God Bogey is ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... the air. In the same way we can best understand the furies of war and politics by remembering that almost the whole of each party believes absolutely in its picture of the opposition, that it takes as fact, not what is, but what it supposes to be the fact. And that therefore, like Hamlet, it will stab Polonius behind the rustling curtain, thinking him the king, and perhaps ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... enjoying the blessings of liberty, peace and plenty, while her kindred and friends lie in chains on the opposite side of the Atlantic, or while the infamous flag of the despot who oppresses them, and who but recently sought to stab her to the heart, floats in triumph on her very borders. Both heaven and humanity demand something more at her hands; and if actuated by no higher motive than that of mere self-preservation, or of providing against a rainy day, we would advise her, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... conscious of a queer and almost incomprehensible stab at the heart. She answered without hesitation ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of Lords Durham and Duncannon, provided for its introduction. Later on the historian Grote became its chief supporter in the House of Commons; and from 1833 to 1839, in spite of the ridicule cast by Sydney Smith on the "mouse-trap," and on Grote's "dagger-box, in which you stab the card of your favourite candidate with a dagger,"[1] the minority for the ballot increased from 106 to 217. In 1838 the ballot was the fourth point of the People's Charter. In the same year the abolition of the land qualification introduced rich commercial candidates to the constituencies. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... acute, refined and polished; but polished to a degree that made him prefer affectation and wit to truth and nature. The predominance of his genius was great, and, by consequence, he gave the mortal stab to all true eloquence [a]. When I say this, let me not be suspected of that low malignity which would tarnish the fame of a great character. I admire the man, and the philosopher. The undaunted firmness with which he braved the tyrant's frown, will do immortal ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... he came up to-day I thought he looked more feeble than I had ever seen him; and as I sit here and listen to his hollow cough, every sound seems a stab at my heart." She rocked herself to and fro for a moment, ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... Jane, the other from Janet, was clapped over the unruly mouth. When she promised to speak lower she was allowed to proceed. "But think of missing the court room scene! I am sure she went through a Lady Macbeth act and tried to stab poor old Sour Sandy!" Again the spontaneity of Dozia illustrated the talk, and she made a jab at Jane with the ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... first time in their lives these two utterly selfish men looked into each other's eyes with but one comprehensive thought, which was all for another. Each man was suddenly white with unwonted feeling; for there was something in the pose of that helpless form which brought home, with a poignant stab, a sudden ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... his cavaliers continued to make desperate charges through the Aztecs, who, although unable to withstand the weight and impetus of the horses, closed round them, striving to throw the riders from their backs and to stab the horses themselves—throwing away their lives without hesitation, on the chance of getting one blow at the Spaniards. The moment the horsemen drew back, the Aztecs followed them; and although their loss was immense, their ranks were instantly filled up again, while ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... ugly gash high in the back, to the left of the spine—a bungler's or a coward's attempt at the terrible heart-stab. Miss Gregory, examining it carefully, was of opinion that she could have done it better; it had bled copiously, but she judged it not to be dangerous. She washed it and made a bandage for it out of a couple ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... with tears in their eyes. "They did say they would kill a rebel for every hair of Sir Beville's beard. But I bade them remember their good master's word when he wiped his sword after Stamford fight; how he said, when their cry was 'stab and slay,' 'Halt, men; God will avenge.' I am coming down with the mournfullest burden that ever a poor servant did bear, to bring the great heart that is cold to Kilkhampton vault. Oh, my lady, how shall I ever brook your ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... pronouncing sentence on an assassin who had stabbed a soldier: "You did not only maliciously, wickedly, and feloniously stab or cut his person, thereby depriving him of his life, but did also sever the band of his military breeches, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... age, with whom he might share in the advantages of school and contend for its prizes. His sister Fanny was at about this time elected as a pupil to the Royal Academy of Music; and he has told me what a stab to his heart it was, thinking of his own disregarded condition, to see her go away to begin her education, amid the tearful good wishes of everybody ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... an iceberg on the track, Can I conduct my car to married bliss? I hoped that I could whistle Pansy back, And lo! I got a frostbite off of this! I'd wrastle Death for Her, I'd fight her Pa, - But stab me if I'll ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor • Wallace Irwin

... utmost endeavour; since he must know that to lay open his vanity in public is no less absurd than to lay open his bosom to an enemy whose drawn sword is pointed against it; for every man hath a dagger in his hand ready to stab the vanity of another ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... girls married. The young girls made the old men fools; For they love to kiss the young men in the dark, Or beneath the green leaves of the plantain-tree. The old men then threatened the young men, And said, "You make us look like fools; But we will stab you with our knives till your blood runs forth!" "Oh, stab us, stab us!" cried the young men gladly, "For then your wives will fasten up ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... men give to the words. Life appears to each of us as we ourselves paint it. Hard times which come into our lives from outside are often no more than a brief night from which a brighter day presently dawns—or the stab of a surgeon's knife, which makes us sounder than before. What men call grief is, times without number, a path to greater ease; whereas the ordinary happiness of mankind flows, swiftly as running waters, down from that delightful sense of ease. Like a ship, which, when ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... for action than to go forth against the greatest foe? Here is thy chance to show the world the kingliest spirit it has ever known! Here is a phalanx thou mayst meet all single-handed—a daily struggle with a host of hurts that cut thee to the quick. This sheathed sword upon thy side will stab thee hourly with deeper thrusts than any adversary can give. 'Twill be a daily 'minder of thy thwarted hopes. For foiled ambition is the hydra-headed monster of the Lerna marsh. Two heads will rise for every one thou severest. 'Twill be a fight till death. Art brave enough to lift the ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston

... would not have been a fist but a bullet through his head that would have punished him. Now mark me, Jean Diantre," and she moved a pace forward, so suddenly that the man started back, "you are a known assassin and poltroon. If at any time harm befalls Monsieur Dampierre I will stab you with my own hand. If you ever dare to speak to me again I will hold you up to the scorn of the women of the quarter. As it is, your comrades have heard how mean and cowardly a scoundrel you are. You had best move from Montmartre at once, ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... sly-faced female, who smiled on each alternately, but gave her hand to be kissed to a third manikin, an ugly little scoundrel, who crouched behind her back. There a pair of friendly dolls walked arm in arm, apparently on the best terms, while, all the time, one was watching his opportunity to stab the other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... detective's story; "but you must be aware that you run a great risk in going about the country without disguise, avowedly in search of the perpetrators of the express robbery. Of course, this man has friends, and they will not hesitate to shoot or stab, as they did in the case of ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... The stab delivered by the Bushman can always be distinguished, because the wound is invariably square, and thus a clue only too certain has often been afforded to the assassin of many an unfortunate hunter. Whatever the Bushman in this case had hurled his club at, the club had gone ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... of the city's worst crooks and criminals was something of which he, Jimmie Dale, had never dreamed until this instant, and now, while it staggered him, it brought, too, a sense of merciless fury—a fury against those who would stab like inhuman cowards, pitilessly, at the father through the son. Their last card! The safe swung open. Their last card ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... It is God's will that the sun shall remain in the sky, for otherwise it would be dark night, and then I should die"—then he would not go. He would remain, and then—well, then? He uttered an incoherent prayer. He was sorry for Mikolai; he felt a stab in his heart when he heard him whistling. But he was glad he had not seen Rosa that day. If only he did not see ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... but have known then and there that this was only a petty stab from one petty jealous girl! But she did not know. She heard the words, apparently so innocently spoken, and said to herself, "They think I am here as a servant, not as a guest!" and with a miserable confused feeling that everything was wrong, from her acceptance of the invitation to her shabby ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry

... spear-blades blazing and breaking. More than we know of is rising and making. Stab with the javelin, crash with the car! Cry! for we know not the thing that we are. Stand, O sun! that in horrible patience Smiled on the smoke and the slaughter of nations. Thou shalt grow sad for a little crying, Thou shalt be darkened for one ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton

... salaries from the public treasury, on the ground, either openly avowed or falsely denied, that they have rendered service in the election of the very individual who makes this removal and makes this appointment. Every man, Sir, must see that this is a vital stab at the purity of the press. It not only assails its independence, by addressing sinister motives to it, but it furnishes from the public treasury the means of exciting these motives. It extends the executive power over the press in ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... hand went quickly to her heart, as though to still a sudden stab of pain, and for the moment her face whitened and then ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... They sat for eight months, had to adjourn over Christmas, and those men returned true bills at the peril of their lives. The venue was changed to Cork for all these counties, and every man jack of the jury knew full well that any day some fanatic friend of the convicted men might shoot or stab him in the street. The loyalty of Belfast is all the talk, but it has never undergone so severe a test. There the Loyalists have it all their own way. Here the Loyalists, instead of being three to one, are only one to three. The Ulstermen are the entrenched army; the Cork Unionists ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... room or closet, off the chamber in which he slept. I was suffering under a bad fracture, and dosed with opium. 'Tis all very strange, Sir. I saw everything that happened. I saw him stab Beauclerc. Don't question me; it tires me. I think 'twas a dagger. It looked like a small bayonet I'll tell ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... The female was screaming and hunting for her teeth. The conductor, the porter and the brakeman came running in to see whether it was a political discussion or just a murder. All the old lady could do was to mumble and hunt for her teeth. A man across the aisle swore that he saw Lehman stab the old lady with a bowie knife and throw her out into the aisle. The woman with the baby corroborated him, excepting that she thought he hit her with a piece of ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy

... with my wife, as you term that fearful hag: Grace will do much for money, and she shall have her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to bear her company and be at hand to give her aid in the paroxysms, when my wife is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at night, to stab them, to bite their flesh from their bones, and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... from under the scant shelter, but an alert tentacle hissed through the air in a swift stab at him, and he dodged ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... hurried consultation, Madame said: "I do hope nothing will happen to prevent our getting off safely. Rosabella has so much Spanish pride, I verily believe she would stab herself rather than ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... false, I will stab him to the heart, with my own hand, though he be my father's brother's grandson, and the best warrior of our tribe; but no, no, Phadraig, the boy is young, and his blood is hot and fiery; and the charms of that witch might well move a colder ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... Actaeon, at the Siena chalice, at all the monstrous collection. They weren't nearly all monstrous, either—not even most—but he didn't know that; they might be for all he could tell. He looked at them all with the same bewildered, hurt, inimical eyes, and it was that which gave Peter his deepest stab ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... so, he would probably have killed it. This made me very angry, and I told the man not to do so again; upon this, he caught up another, and was about to throw it, when I seized him by the collar with my left hand, and with my right drawing my American knife, I threatened to stab him with it, if he attacked the beast. The man started back, and in so doing, fell over a piece of rock, on his back. This quarrel brought the mate to us, along with two or three of the men. My knife was still lifted up, when ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... anything that had happened. Frank told me nothing. Then my father died, and I was ill, and we came here and I did not know it at all till my husband came in and told me"—and her eyes blazed at the thought—"told me what had happened to-day..." She stopped. Stamfordham felt a stab as he thought ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... content with this, Mather goaded his congregation into frenzy from the pulpit. "Consider also, the misery of them whom witchcraft may be let loose upon. What is it to fall into the hands of devils?... O what a direful thing is it, to be prickt with pins, and stab'd with knives all over, and to be fill'd all over with broken bones? 'Tis impossible to reckon up the varieties of miseries which those monsters inflict where they can have a blow. No less than death, and that a languishing and a terrible death will satisfie the rage of those formidable ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... see Mr. Haward again," answered Audrey. She held her head up, but she felt the stab. It had not occurred to her that hers was the power to vex and ruin; apparently that ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston



Words linked to "Stab" :   thrust, feeling, remise, twinge, dig, injure, attempt, stabber, lunge, passado, endeavour, effort, goad, guilt pang, prod, knife thrust, endeavor, wound, pang, blow, knife, straight thrust, poke, try, jab, poniard



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