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Stratagem   Listen
noun
Stratagem  n.  An artifice or trick in war for deceiving the enemy; hence, in general, artifice; deceptive device; secret plot; evil machination. "Fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." "Those oft are stratagems which error seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Stratagem" Quotes from Famous Books



... equivalent to Jupiter's marital displeasure at Juno's jealousy and interference during the war of Troy. In the story of Gefjon, and the clever way in which she procured land from Gylfi to form her kingdom of Seeland, we have a reproduction of the story of Dido, who obtained by stratagem the land upon which she founded her city of Carthage. In both accounts oxen come into play, for while in the Northern myth these sturdy beasts draw the piece of land far out to sea, in the other an ox hide, cut into strips, serves to ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... inquiries, and descriptions, and telegraphing up the line, and all manner of agitation. What, then, was I to do? I might have taken my hat-box with me in the carriage? That, indeed, is what I always did. But, unless a thing is to go in the van, it receives no label at all. So I had to use a mild stratagem. 'Yes,' I would say, 'everything in the van!' The labels would be duly affixed. 'Oh,' I would cry, seizing the hat-box quickly, 'I forgot. I want this with me in the carriage.' (I learned to seize it quickly, because some porters are such martinets that they will whisk the label ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... to make a proper use of prepositions, particular attention is requisite. There is a peculiar propriety to be observed in the use of by and with; as, "He walks with a staff by moonlight;" "He was taken by stratagem, and killed with a sword." Put the one preposition for the other, and say, "He walks by a staff with moonlight;" "He was taken with stratagem, and killed by a sword;" and it will appear, that the latter expressions differ from the former ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... the answer, new attempts were made to overcome the resistance of the accused; and both stratagem and terror were brought into play. In the course of a second admonition, May 2d, the preacher, Master Chatillon, proposed to her to submit the question of the truth of her visions to persons of her own party. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... to the little hovel they called home. Dan at once put the mule into the cart and started back to the landing to bring home his quarter of beef; while Godfrey, by pretending to fall asleep on the bench in front of the cabin, was able to carry out a little stratagem that suddenly suggested itself to him. He knew that Dan was a thrifty lad in spite of his laziness, and that he believed in laying by something for a rainy day. He was never out of ammunition for his rifle, but he always took care to keep his ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon

... stratagem, and, pretending not to be afraid of the animal, he threw his sword over the frog's back, exclaiming, "Take that; ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others

... not be sufficient to buy it from the hands of this vindictive fellow, whose passion for revenge was insatiable. To calm his master he added that they must try to find another method, and that, as the miscreant probably was not especially attached to it for its own sake, perhaps, by using stratagem, they might get possession of the paper, which was of so much importance to the Elector, through the instrumentality of a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... terms of his capitulation. Scarborough was repeatedly attacked by the Scotch, but it subsequently enjoyed an interval of peace until the Reformation. In Wyatt's rebellion his friends secured possession of the castle by stratagem. A number of his men, disguised as peasants, on market-day strolled one by one into the castle, and then at a given signal overpowered the sentinels and admitted the rest of their band. The castle, however, was soon recaptured from the rebels, and Thomas Stafford, the leader in ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... prayers to God resolves never to do the like again. Mrs. Pepys is not satisfied, however, till she makes her husband write a letter to Deb, telling her that she is little better than a whore, and that he hates her, though Deb is spared this, not by any stratagem of Pepys, but by the considerateness of the friend to whom the letter was entrusted for delivery. Moreover, Mrs. Pepys arranges with her husband that, in future, whenever he goes abroad he shall be accompanied everywhere ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... now arise and depart from us without ill-doing; or I will give a single outcry and all who are in the street will come forth." So the Emir went out from her, without having gotten a single dirham; and on this wise she delivered the Jew by the seemliness of her stratagem. The company admired this tale, and as for the Wali and Al-Malik al-Zahir, they said, "Ever devised any the like of this device?" and they marvelled with the utterest of marvel. Then arose a third constable and said, "Hear what betided me, for it is ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... tactics from which he recoiled were put into practice, with less than his honesty, but with much more skill in stratagem, by those who sought to accomplish his fall. The very courtiers whose influence was accountable for the scandals which stirred the indignation of the country party, made themselves the trusted friends of the parliamentary opposition, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... Filibusters descended upon the Peninsula, they employed—so says the native tradition—the time-worn stratagem of the Pious Aeneas; and, having obtained, by purchase, as much land as could be enclosed by the hide of a bull, from the Sultan of Malacca, they cut the skin up into such cunning strips that a space large enough to build a formidable fort was won by them. This they erected in the ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... better not. If we are able to do any good, we must do it by stratagem. Let us watch their movements, and act ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... eyes to discover the mystery of iniquity, which these men have driven; and much more inconsiderable, that have had hearts to oppose and withstand their tyranny and usurpations. And why may not God make use of the same stratagem to ruin their kingdom, which they used to build it? Yea, God hath seemed to do it already, while in that place where they cast that roaring canon, and formed their cursed oath, for the establishing their Babel prelacy, with its endless perpetuity. In the very same place hath this ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... well saw the simple stratagem by which the King was endeavouring to escape from the conclusions of his reasoning, and to adopt, under pretence of his sanction, a course of proceeding the reverse of what it best suited him to recommend. But though he saw he could not guide his brother to the line of conduct he desired, he ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... was Kriemhild when she heard that her stratagem had come to naught. "Full ill have ye requited me, Sir Hagen," she cried fiercely, and drawing the sword of Siegfried from its sheath, she raised it with both hands and ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... their saddles. The gate creaked open and the horsemen from Don Loris' castle filed inside. They showed no elation, because Hoddan had promised to ram a spear-shaft its full length down the throat of any man who gave away his stratagem ahead of time. The gate closed behind them. Men appeared to take their horses. This could have revealed that the newcomers were strangers, but Ghek would have recruited new and extra retainers for the emergency ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... "charming," I murmur "delicious." If he thinks it "exquisite," I pronounce it "enchanting." Where he is rapt in admiration, I go into a trance, and so shamble through the performances, miserable impostor that I am, and ten to one nobody finds out that I am a dunce, fit for treason, stratagem, and spoils. It is a great strain upon the mental powers, but it is wonderful to see how much may be accomplished, and what skill may be attained, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... more to his measures, spread a report, and even said himself often, that he was in treaty with the Emperor, and the accommodation on the point of being concluded: but Grotius, who knew the Cardinal's character, was not duped by it; and wrote to the High Chancellor that it was only a stratagem of that Minister, and the report ought to make no ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... king, where he was confined. For this purpose, "he stained his hair and his whole body entirely as black as jet, so that nothing was white but his teeth," and succeeded in imposing himself on the king, as an Ethiopian minstrel. He effected, by stratagem, the escape of the prisoner. Negroes, therefore, must have been known in England in the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... this war. Anlaf, on the approach of the English army, thought that he could not venture too much to ensure a fortunate event; and, employing the artifice formerly practised by Alfred against the Danes, he entered the enemy's camp in the habit of a minstrel. The stratagem was for the present attended with like success. He gave such satisfaction to the soldiers who flocked about him, that they introduced him to the king's tent; and Anlaf, having played before that prince and his nobles during their ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... The bullet or the knife of the savage would not be likely to reach him in the streets of Hillsdale. For it is no part of the tactics of an American Indian to expose his own life. On the contrary, he is considered a fool who does so unnecessarily. Stratagem is prized above force, and he is the greatest warrior who, while inflicting an injury, takes care not to expose himself to harm. Esther knew all this, and for these reasons, perhaps, if with Holden she was vague, with his son she was oracular. Consequently, Pownal only laughed at her, when she ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... the field in great consternation; and finally, as he grew bolder and more frequent in his descents, the whole herd broke over the fence, and came tearing down to the house "like mad." It did not seem to be an assault with intent to kill, but was, perhaps, a stratagem resorted to in order to separate the herd and expose the lambs, which hugged the cattle very closely. When he occasionally alighted upon the oaks that stood near, the branch could be seen to sway and bend ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... show their love by their affected indifference, and appear smitten by any woman except the one whom they are devoted to. This is an ingenious stratagem; but in general it is so badly managed, that it is more easily seen through than a cobweb. Lastly, there are a select few, who evince their tender regard by perpetual bickerings and quarrels. This method will frequently ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... opponents entirely at their mercy and with no risk to themselves. But of a manful contest on equal terms, or of a victory obtained over tyrannous power by a union of patience, boldness, and honest skill, or even by undegrading stratagem, the collection affords ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... you say. D'ye see the Revenge yonder, Blackbeard's tall cruiser? The very ship he filched from Stede Bonnet by dirty stratagem and broken oaths!" ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... German troop want to carry a position, they place before them civilians—men, women, and children—and find shelter behind these ramparts of living flesh. As such a stratagem is essentially playing upon the nobility of heart of the adversary, and saying to him "you won't fire upon these unfortunates, I know it, and I hold you at my mercy, unarmed, because you are not as craven as I am," as it implies a homage to the enemy and the self-degradation of the one employing ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... by stratagem, others by treachery, others, again, by accident; and while the exact bearings of the places were mostly well remembered, others died out of the memory of those to whose trust they had been committed, or ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... not hurt her delicacy, by insisting on 'seeing her bedchamber', like Archer in The Beaux' Stratagem. But my curiosity was more ardent; I lighted a piece of paper, and went into the place where the bed was. There was a little partition of wicker, rather more neatly done than that for the fold, and close by the wall was a kind of bedstead of wood with heath upon it by way of bed; at ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... made Republican by the chaos into which the Court, with its allies, the priests, and the populace, had thrown Naples, kept up communication with Championnet, and looked forward to the entrance of the French as the only means of averting destruction and massacre. By a stratagem carried out on the night of the 20th they gained possession of the fort of St. Elmo, while the French were already engaged in a bloody assault upon the suburbs. On the 23rd Championnet ordered the attack to be renewed. The conspirators within St. Elmo hoisted the French ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... above all for sending Mr. Talbot; and a message to ask pardon for having so belied the loyal education they had given him. The divided religion of the country had been his bane: his mother's charge secretly to follow her faith had been the beginning, and then had followed the charms of stratagem on ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Lord Bardolph? every minute now Should be the father of some stratagem: The times are wild; contention, like a horse Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose And bears down all ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]

... This stratagem succeeded admirably. We were seen approaching by Miss Evelyn, my mother, and Mary. Dear Eliza acted her part admirably, was seen to fall heavily, and screamed. They all rushed out, we lifted her carefully on her legs, and supported her to the house, she complaining ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... protect us after we were clear of the bay. Indeed, if it were known that we had so done, it would probably only precipitate the affair, and we should be taken possession of while at anchor, for the shot from the fort would hardly reach us. It was, therefore, only by stratagem that we could escape from the clutches of these miscreants. Again, allowing that we were to get clear of the slavers, we were still in an awkward position, for, supposing the captain to be of any use, we should still only be ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... any moment, and they must profit by the breaking up of the ice, which was impending. But how could they transport this little flotilla to the river which flowed into Lake Ontario twenty miles away without giving the alarm and being massacred at the first step? They adopted a singular stratagem derived from the customs of these people, and one in which the fugitives succeeded perfectly. "A young Frenchman adopted by an Indian," relates Jacques de Beaudoncourt, "pretended to have a dream by which he was warned to make a festival, 'to eat everything,' if he did not wish to ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath

... Mark Wylder's seal, which he compelled his sister—quite unconscious of all but that their despatch by post, at the periods pencilled upon them, was essential to her wretched brother's escape. It was the success of this, his first stratagem, which suggested that long series of frauds which, with the aid of Jim Dutton, selected for his striking points of resemblance to Mark Wylder, had been carried on for so long with such consummate ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... battle I cannot speak his praise, unless I could count all that fell by his sword. I will only mention one instance of his manhood. When we sat hid in the belly of the wooden horse, in the ambush which deceived the Trojans to their destruction, I, who had the management of that stratagem, still shifted my place from side to side to note the behaviour of our men. In some I marked their hearts trembling, through all the pains which they took to appear valiant, and in others tears, that ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB

... Livingstone's fingers loosened their grasp, while her face grew livid with mingled passion and fear. Her fraud was discovered—her stratagem had failed—and she was foiled in this, her second darling scheme. But she was yet to learn what agency 'Lena had in the matter, and this information her husband obtained for her. There was no anger in the ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... the passing of the Licensing Act; certainly no new play can be found answering the description furnished by the Abbe with due regard to the period he has fixed for its production. Possibly he referred to the "Beaux' Stratagem," in which appear a French officer and an Irish-French priest, and which was certainly represented some few nights after the condemnation of Mr. Jacob's "Nest of Plays." Farquhar's comedy was then ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... But Little Jacket made Zebedee promise that he would be guided by his advice, in their endeavors to ensnare the giant. Indeed, a new idea had entered Jacky's head as to the best way of getting Huggermugger into their power, and that was to try persuasion rather than stratagem or force. I will tell you the reasons he ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch

... were held penned up on the road without water till dawn, when the charge was renewed with such zest that for a time it looked as if there were no escape for the forces of Bouquet. The unusual boldness of the Indians suggested to him a stratagem. ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney

... Had not Sheila's stratagem succeeded? That pretty trick of hers in decorating the room so as to resemble the house at Borvabost had done all that she could have desired. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... ambassador to drug La Motte, put him on board a collier at South Shields and carry him to France. But the old Italian lost heart, and, after getting 1,000l. out of the French Government in advance, deemed it more prudent to share the money with the Count. Perhaps the Count invented the whole stratagem; it was worthy of the husband and pupil of Jeanne de Valois. That poor lady's cause was lost when Villette and Gay d'Oliva were brought back across the frontier, confessed, and corroborated each other's stories. Yet she made a wonderfully ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... soon as they drew near to it. They did as directed, and, as they approached the trench, they drew themselves into a narrow column, and all passed over and joined the rest of the army. But the Persians, having no means of perceiving the stratagem, gave chase at full speed across a very level plain, possessed as they were by a spirit of fury against the enemy, and fell into the trench, every man of them, not alone the first but also those who followed ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... fourscore whites and three hundred Indians and negroes. But this insult did not remain long unrevenged, for the troops in which Weaver served arriving immediately after from Europe, the army (who before they had done any considerable mischief to the people against whom they marched, had learnt the stratagem by which they had been deceived by Ouranaquoy) returned suddenly into his country, and exercised such severities upon the people thereof that to appease and make peace with the English the chiefs sent them the scalps of Ouranaquoy, his three brothers ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... have something of the nightmare about their etymology. Cuchulain fights three of them successively, has his wounds bound up by a strip of the maiden's garment, and then departs. Thereafter many boasted of having slain the Fomori, but the maiden believed them not till at last by a stratagem she recognises Cuchulain. I may add to this that in Mr. Curtin's Myths, 330, the threefold trial of the sword is told of Cuchulain. This would seem to trace our story back to the seventh or eighth century and certainly ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... cut in pieces before the others can come up? Rathenau is the nearest skirt of this middle party: thither goes the Kurfuerst, softly, swiftly, in the June night (June 16-17, 1675); gets into Rathenau by brisk stratagem; tumbles out the Swedish Horse regiment there, drives it ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... tomahawks and scalping-knives, the people of Williamsburg trembled for their lives. At that time, the country near Harper's Ferry was the Far West. In a very little while, these mountaineers, by mingled stratagem and system, defeated Lord Dunmore, very much as Andrew Jackson defeated the British at New Orleans thirty-five years later. Marshall then went with the army to the vicinity of Philadelphia; was in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... actually propounded in my book had been, in fact, "appropriated" and "borrowed" from an idealist! The immense utility of misrepresenting my system at the start as "essentially idealistic" lay in the fact that, by adopting this stratagem, Dr. Royce could escape altogether the formidable necessity of first arguing the main question of idealism versus realism. Secretly conscious of his own inability to handle that question, to refute my "Soliloquy of the Self-Consistent Idealist," or to overthrow my demonstration ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot

... Tayoga to Robert, "that there is more in war than fighting. Craft and cunning, wile and stratagem are often as profitable as the ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler

... his stratagem well on the way to success, and feeling once more the well-earned confidence of his fellows, slept soundly that night in his own bed, serenely ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... angrily at the stranger. If this was indeed a federal stratagem, what an intolerably cruel one! In front of him the glasses sparkled alluringly: a delicate mist gathered on their ice-chilled curves: a pungent ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley

... but Grace was famous for minding her own business, and kept her suspicions to herself. Rose's manoeuvring amused her, and she let her go on. Every strategy the young lady could conceive was brought to bear, and every stratagem was skilfully baffled. ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... guilty of wrong-doing in hiding from his knowledge certain thoughts. She walked with hasty steps, surprised to breathe a purer air, to feel the sun's rays quickening her pulses, to absorb from their heat a moral warmth and a new life. As she turned over in her mind some stratagem by which to get the cake, a quarrel—an event as rare as the sight of swallows in winter—broke out between la Grande Nanon and Grandet. Armed with his keys, the master had come to dole out provisions for the ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac

... young man, who was not fledg'd nor skill'd In Martial play, was even as ignorant As childish: But I list not to disparage His non-ability: The signal given Of Battel, when our enemies came on, (Directed more by fury, than by warrant Of Policy and Stratagem) I met them, I in the fore-front of the Armies met them; And as if this old weather-beaten body Had been compos'd of cannon-proof, I stood The volleys of their shot. I, I my self Was he that first dis-rankt their woods of Pikes: But when we came to handy-stroaks, as often As I lent blows, ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... afraid to descend into the waters. With fir we likewise make all intestine works, as wainscot, floors, pales, balks, laths, boxes, bellies for all musical instruments in general, nay the ribs and sides of that enormous stratagem, the so famous Trojan{239:2} horse, may be thought to be built of this material, and ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... was not one of all that company who did not think of Gordon. And of him there was not a little to think. The long waiting, month after month; never disheartened or beaten; trying every device, every stratagem, to keep the foes which environed him at bay; maintaining well even his reputation; anxious not for himself but for others, ready to sacrifice self indeed at any moment, cheerfully, for the sake of those whom he had undertaken ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... not to incur this risk in America. Photographers sent their cards, but they saw me not (perhaps if they had they would have repented of their invitation). However, one day I was secured by stratagem. ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... than he had expected, after his machinations put him in possession of his benefactor's estate. His reflections within doors, where so much occurred to remind him of former times, were not always the self-congratulations of successful stratagem. And when he looked abroad, he could not but be sensible that he was excluded from the society of the gentry of the county, to whose rank he conceived he had raised himself. He was not admitted to their clubs, and at meetings of a public nature, from which ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... fault," said Grace, endeavouring to cover her face with her hands to hide at once her blushes, and escape the storm of hearty kisses with which her bridegroom punished her simple stratagem,—"It wasna my fault, Hobbie; ye should kiss Jeanie and the rest o' them, for they ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... to complete the outline of this masterly stratagem. "Don't be impossible, Rod," she said. "Don't you even know ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... soldier. A marvellous occurrence is recorded by the Arabian chroniclers as having taken place in the Christian camp; but discreet Spanish writers relate it with much modification, and consider it a stratagem of the wily Bishop Oppas, to sound the loyalty ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... little man laughed heartily at the success of his stratagem, and polished and fondled the great eye until that optic seemed to grow sore ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... fantastic images; even that you acted with extraordinary logic and cunning while surrounded by murderers who hid their intentions and made great demonstrations of friendship, while waiting for an opportunity to cut your throat. You remember how you escaped them by some ingenious stratagem; then you doubted if they were really deceived, or whether they were only pretending not to know your hiding-place; then you thought of another plan and hoodwinked them once again. You remember all this quite clearly, but how is it that your reason ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... south-west was pierced, while the incessant roll of rifles made a mile-long fringe of jagged yellowish flame along the enemy's eastern trenches. Even before the feint sputtered out the rush had been made, the stratagem had developed, and at the bidding of twenty incendiary torches, the daub-and-wattle huts of the Barala town leaped skyward ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... that the dispute between them had been revived, and had ended fatally to the Count. Sometimes she was inclined to hope, that weariness, or disgust at her firm rejection of his suit had induced him to relinquish it; and, at others, she suspected that he had now recourse to stratagem, and forbore his visits, and prevailed with Montoni to forbear the repetition of his name, in the expectation that gratitude and generosity would prevail with her to give him the consent, which he could not ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... to seize the truth, which is not a beautiful shape living in a well but a shy bird best caught by stratagem. This was the last move of the colonel's diplomacy, and he saw the truth shining unmistakably in the gesture of Lieutenant D'Hubert, raising his weak arms and his eyes to ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad

... was an audacious confederate, probably one of Stuart's scouts clothed in federal uniform, who made a thorough tour of inspection of our line, and then, after seeing us fall back, very likely led his own line to the position which he secured by this daring stratagem. The confederates were up to such tricks, and occasionally the yankees were smart enough to give them a ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... this, he resolved to make a division of their movables too, that there might be no odious distinction or inequality left amongst them; but finding that it would be very dangerous to go about it openly, he took another course, and defeated their avarice by the following stratagem: he commanded that all gold and silver coin should be called in, and that only a sort of money made of iron should be current, a great weight and quantity of which was worth but very little; so that to lay up a hundred or two dollars there was required ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... bridegroom enters. His sole desire is to escape from a marriage which is hateful to him. An idea strikes him. He will assault the duenna, and get ignominiously expelled from the palace by his indignant father-in-law. To his horror, when he proceeds to carry out this stratagem, the duenna, far from raising an alarm, is flattered, delighted, and compliant. The assaulter becomes the assaulted. He flings her angrily to the ground, where she remains placidly. He flies. The father enters; dismisses ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... should have the advantage of position. I therefore, ran the boat ashore, and landed with M'Leay amidst the smaller party of natives, wholly unarmed, and having directed the men to keep at a little distance from the bank. Fortunately, what I anticipated was brought about by the stratagem to which I had had recourse. The blacks no sooner observed that we had landed, than curiosity took place of anger. All wrangling ceased, and they came swimming over to us like a parcel of seals. Thus, in less than a quarter of an hour from the ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... their want of Achilles. The general, who is deluded with the hopes of taking Troy without his assistance, but fears the army was discouraged by his absence and the late plague, as well as by length of time, contrives to make trial of their disposition by a stratagem. He first communicates his design to the princes in council that he would propose a return to the soldiers, and that they should put a stop to them if the proposal was embraced. Then he assembles the whole ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... M'Dowell fast, but it would have drawn Jackson too far from Richmond. The Confederate generals, therefore, in order to impose upon their enemies, and to maintain the belief that Washington was threatened, had recourse to stratagem. The departure of Whiting and Lawton for the Valley was ostentatiously announced. Federal prisoners, about to be dismissed upon parole, were allowed to see the trains full of soldiers proceeding westward, to count the regiments. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... varieties that the novice to-day may well be excused for perplexity in choice. Thompson, the English authority, gives forty kinds, and one hundred and forty- eight synonyms. Mr. Gregory recommends the American Wonder, Bliss's Abundance, Bliss's Ever-bearing, McLean's Advancer, Yorkshire Hero, Stratagem, and Champion of England. Mr. Henderson's list includes Henderson's First of All, American Wonder, Bliss's Abundance, Champion of England, and Pride of the Market. Mr. Harris in his catalogue marks first and best, American Wonder, and also says, "For the main crop there ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... markolo. Strait (narrow) mallargxa. Strait (difficulty) embarasajxo. Straiten mallargxigi. Strand marbordo. Strand (of rope, etc.) fadeno. Strange stranga. Stranger fremdulo, malkonulo. Strangeness strangeco. Strangle sufoki. Strap rimeno. Stratagem ruzo. Strategy militarto. Stratify tavoli. Stratum tavolo. Straw pajlo. Strawberry frago. Stray erarigxi. Streak streko. Stream rivereto. Street strato. Strength forteco. Strengthen plifortigi. Strenuous energia. Stress forto, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... truths, and the lovely semblances of beauty, truth, affection, can be made first to obscure the presence, and then to conceal the loss, of that religious humility, without which, as their central life, all these are but dreadful shadows; if so fatal a stratagem can be successfully practised, I see not what hope remains for a people against whom the gates ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... well born, and so far well trained, at twenty years of age, away from home, falls into bad company, and, yielding to temptation, commits a great crime, but, escaping by a bit of sagacious stratagem, succeeds in causing his parents to believe that he is dead and mourn him as such, wholly unsuspicious in their minds that he has committed a crime. In the meantime he, in a distant land, lives a useful and honorable life, deeply repenting the sad mishap of his life, and fully ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor

... one of the most striking events in the history of the war, that of the defeat of an invading army by stratagem without sight of soldier or musket. It is to be told from two points of view, that of the garrison, and that of the army of relief. As regards the garrison, its situation was becoming critical. St. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Mrs. Gisborne, now free from all anxiety, was touching. But Merton assured her that he knew nothing whatever of the stratagem, scarcely a worthy one, he thought, as she reported it, by which ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... frightened, and ten thousand only were left. These ten thousand were still too many, for most of them were impatient, not able to restrain themselves, and likely to fail, either through fear or foolhardiness, in the stratagem the Lord designed. He therefore commanded Gideon, when they were all thirsty, to bring them down to the water. Nine thousand seven hundred were in such a hurry to reach it that they dropped on their knees to drink, ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... Hartford again in August and maybe remain till I have to come back here and fetch the family. And, along there in August, some time, you let on that you are going to Mexico, and I will let on that I am going to Spitzbergen, and then under cover of this clever stratagem we will glide from the trains at Worcester and have a time. I have noticed that Providence is indifferent about Mexico and Spitzbergen. Ys ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... from the nature of his pangs what was taking place, Wong Ts'in resorted to a stratagem that rarely failed him. Announcing in a loud voice that it was his intention to refresh the surface of his body by the purifying action of heated vapour, and then to proceed to his mixing-floor, the merchant withdrew. The demon, being an earth-dweller with the ineradicable objection of this class ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... The country will be agitated, and the farmers and townsfolk suffer great misery, if we cannot quell the tumult. The Hatamotos will be easily kept under, but it will be no light task to pacify the great Daimios. If you are willing to lay down your life in carrying out a stratagem of mine, peace will be restored to the country; but your loyalty will ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... to speak to David Sechard, moved thereto by this thought. Eve saw them, knew that her stratagem had succeeded at once, and felt a thrill of the keenest joy. They stated their proposal. They had more work than they could undertake, their presses could not keep pace with the work, would M. Sechard print for them? They had sent to Bordeaux for ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... But, although he could have easily overcome the Indian, he knew that he would be instantly missed; and, from what he had seen of the powers of the savages in tracking wild animals to their dens in the mountains, he felt that he could not possibly elude them except by stratagem. ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne

... been erected for the purpose of protecting the harbor against the depredations and insults of the smaller vessels of the enemy; and a guard of sufficient force to manage the two heavy guns it contained was maintained in the work at all times. He was ignorant how far his stratagem had been successful, and it was only when he heard the fluttering of the Alacrity's canvas, as she opened it to the breeze, he felt ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... have a still stronger defense and he wondered what could be the plan of Timmendiquas. A border leader, in a land covered with great forests was compelled to guard every moment against the cunning and stratagem of a foe who lived by ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... I, "forced us to the course we took, by first taking us prisoners by stratagem, and then refusing to ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... other side, Mr. Andrews, counsel for Henrietta, maintained that while his learned brother assumed the one half of the case as proved, and repudiated the other as a lie or a myth, he had a right to embrace the other half, and pronounce the first a stratagem or trick. The proceedings in the back-room into which Jean Graham introduced Mrs. Hislop were more completely substantiated than those in the bedroom where Mrs. Napier lay; for while the one were sworn to by Mrs. Hislop ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... to their aid, the whole band took to their heels, and, regardless of Amabel's continued shrieks, never stopped till they supposed themselves out of the reach of infection. The earl was thus at liberty to pursue his way unmolested, and laughing heartily at the success of his stratagem, and at the consternation he had created among the haymakers, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... until it was very nearly as dark as pitch; and the house being full of footpads and cutthroats, I thought it right to leave them. One or two came after me, in the hope of designing a stratagem; but I dropped them in the darkness; and knowing all the neighbourhood well, I took up my position, two hours before midnight, among the shrubs at the eastern end of Lord Brandir's mansion. Hence, although I might not see, I could scarcely fail ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... verbal sense of the word ( scire licet) being prominent. 10. accersi ( arcessiri), frequent in Sallust. 16. necessariis (necesse) friends. Cf. anankaioi (anank). 19. Iugurtha Sullae ... traditur. Sulla is said to have been so proud of this stratagem that he had the scene engraved upon a signet-ring, an act of vainglory which estranged ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... them was a bridge, in the possession of the French; and some way farther down the river was a ford, known only to the Spanish general, Pedro de Paez. He proposed to lure the French guards from the bridge, and then to seize it. And his stratagem was ready. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... me clean down to the ground," he said. "It's wile an' stratagem which I like. Lead on to this ford, Henry, an' we'll lay down an' rest beside it till ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... The fundamental stratagem can only be carried out by your learning a wide assortment of Squash Tennis shots and perfecting your repertoire with practice and experience against many different types of opponents under ...
— Squash Tennis • Richard C. Squires

... absolute owner of street and houses and passers-by,—one who owned the patent and dispensed the right to tread that soil, to breathe that air, to be glorified in that sunlight and amid those snow-crystals. And he looked it all. Though at that moment his army was entrapped by military stratagem, and he himself was entrapped by diplomatic stratagem, that face and form were proud as ever and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various

... would overflow with love; at all events it was not to be supposed, that both master and man could remain callous to the potency of her corporeal charms. Finding, however, that the hearts of the Europeans were much like the rocks of her native land, perfectly impenetrable, she had recourse to another stratagem, which is generally attended with success. In the enlightened and civilized country of Europe, or at least in that part of it called England, it is by no means an obsolete custom, for an individual, who wishes to ingratiate himself with the object of his affections, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... graciously referring to the account of the special meeting in Sancta Sophia which I had the honor to forward the evening of the day of its occurrence. The conjecture there advanced that the celebration of the Sacrament in highest form was a stratagem of the Patriarch's looking to a reconciliation of the factions, has been confirmed; and more—it has proved a failure. Its effect has inflamed the fanaticism of the Greek party as never before. Notaras, moved doubtless by Gennadius, induced ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... errand), to inform his lordship of their apprehensions. The man arrived in time enough to deliver his message before Swift made his appearance. His lordship then recollecting that the dean never had the small-pox, thought of the following stratagem. Seeing him coming up the avenue, he ran out to meet him, and expressed his happiness at the sight of him. "But I am mortified at one circumstance," continued his lordship, "as it must deprive me of the pleasure of your company; there is a raging small-pox in the house: I beg, however, that ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... upon these animals, the Theban garrison fell, as the wily Persian commander anticipated, an unresisting prey to his stratagem." ...
— Minnie's Pet Cat • Madeline Leslie

... "The Mill on the Floss," the author gives to one chapter the title, "How a Hen Takes to Stratagem." The two cases are not parallel; and yet I always think of this chapter-heading when I recall what followed Amos Judson's admonition to Mrs. Whately, to use her influence in his behalf. When Marjie's ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... every stratagem which a vile and savage spirit could inspire. Sometimes a picket is approached by the stealthiest creeping through the dark thickets, when the unfortunate sentinel is seized and quickly despatched by a bowie-knife, or other like weapon, which a Southron can always use ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... the disciples came together secretly at midnight. But the spy was abroad, and despite all precautions, from time to time brutal soldiers discovered the place of meeting, and, bursting in, dragged the worshipers off to prison. Then a cruel stratagem was adopted that looked to the discovery of those who secretly cherished faith. A decree went forth forbidding the jailer to furnish food, making the prisoners ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... the foe, of his countrymen's aspirations after freedom and a purer glimpse of the lights of the sun. The evolution of this extraordinary historic drama, to which passion, genius, hope, contrivance, stratagem, and force contributed alike the highest and the lowest elements in human nature and the growth of states, was to be one of the most sincere of Mr. Gladstone's interests for the rest ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... adventures of two lads, Dick Elsworth and Bob Harvey, in the wilds of South Africa. By stratagem the Zulus capture Dick and Bob and take them to their principal kraal or village. The lads escape death by digging their way out of the prison hut by night. They are pursued, but the Zulus finally give up pursuit. Mr. Prentice tells exactly how wild-beast collectors ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... in an instant. Beyond a doubt this was but a stratagem to capture him. But he resolved that he would never surrender, as long as he had sufficient strength to ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon

... heavy watching had robbed the couch of sleep, and care pressed down the spirit. I had returned successful, but not to receive a triumph: rather, Harper and myself constituted a relief force, thrown in by stratagem, too weak to raise the siege, but bearing glad tidings of ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... after a pause, "under your counsels, I no more doubt of seeing our banner float above the Vermilion Towers, than I doubt the rising of the sun over yonder hills; it matters little whether we win by stratagem or force. But I need not say to your highness, that we should carefully beware lest we be amused by inventions of the enemy, and trust to conspiracies which may be but lying tales to blunt our sabres, and paralyse ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... success of his stratagem. He had just transformed the Rose Princess into a fiddle and was about to transform Files into a fiddle bow, when the dragon appeared to interrupt him. So he ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... price no less fearful than she herself has paid. Keawe being in possession of a bottle which must infallibly bring him to hell-flames unless he can dispose of it at a certain price, Kokua his wife by a stratagem purchases the bottle from him, and stands committed to the doom he has escaped. She does her best to hide this from Keawe, but he, by accident discovering the truth, by another stratagem wins back the curse upon his own head, and is only rescued by a deus ex machina ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... and would certainly require his co-operation. So now, every evening, in the spare time after supper, she set to work on the drawings, aided by some photographs and rough sketches made by Hardy. After a little stratagem she got him to come up and help her with suggestions, or to sit for her while she sketched him in all the attitudes of ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... birds filled the woods with an out-gush of melody; the rainbow, as ever, spanned the abyss of waters, while below, drifting in eddies, were fragments of canoes, and still more ghastly fragments telling of the night's destruction. The stratagem of the girl had been entirely successful—deluded by the false beacon, the unhappy savages had drifted on with the tide, unconscious of danger, till the one terrible pang of danger, and the terrible plunge of death came at the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... ought, to the perishing of thousands? The greatest burden in the world is Superstition, not only of ceremonies in the Church, but of imaginary and scarecrow sins at home. What greater weakening, what more subtle stratagem against our Christian warfare, when, besides the gross body of real transgressions to encounter, we shall be terrified by a vain and shadowy menacing of faults that are not! When things indifferent shall be set to overfront us, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... Did he? Then as I live, I'm resolved to keep up the delusion. Tell me, Pimple, how do you like my present dress? Don't you think I look something like Cherry in the Beaux Stratagem? ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith

... exposing virgin bosoms to the day, are not what they seem! Those very bosoms are fakes, and cannot open, being instead pierced by eyelets, into which bogus studs are fixed by machinery. The owner is obliged to enter into those deceptive garments surreptitiously from the rear, by stratagem, as it were. Why all this trouble, one asks, for no apparent reason, except that old-fashioned shirts opened in front, and no Yankee will wear a non-patented garment—if he ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... named, for he had borne himself most bravely in that affair, where he overcame the greatest of heretics, and from that was authorised to take the name. Now this said captain had two sons, good Catholics, of whom the eldest was in favour at court. After the peace, which was concluded before the stratagem arranged for St Bartholomew's Day, the good man returned to his manor, which was not ornamented as it is at the present day. There he received the sad announcement of the death of his son, slain in a duel by ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... this was no idle boast, and that the disposition of his enemy's force, without some stratagem, set at defiance any attack under present circumstances. Still he did not despair, and taught in Indian warfare, such a position was the very one to bring out his energies and abilities. Falling back for a moment, he uttered a few words ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... of the men who were its instruments. The flowering hedges of the beautiful valleys concealed the combatants. Each field was a fortress, every tree an ambush; the hollow trunk of each old willow hid a stratagem. The place for a fight was everywhere. Sharpshooters were lurking at every turn for the Blues, whom laughing young girls, unmindful of their perfidy, attracted within range,—for had they not made pilgrimages with their fathers and their brothers, imploring ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... their influence on the isle; from them sprang all that was best and noblest in our past, and let no one think but that it was noble. Leaving aside that mystic sense of union with another world and looking only at the tales of battle, when we read of heroes whose knightly vows forbade the use of stratagem in war, and all but the equal strife with equals in opportunity; when we hear of the reverence for truth among the Fianna, "We the Fianna of Erin never lied, falsehood was never attributed to us"—a reverence ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell



Words linked to "Stratagem" :   plant, ploy, dodge, contrivance, scheme, gambit, manoeuvre, tactical maneuver, wangling, tactical manoeuvre



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