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Stroke   Listen
verb
Stroke  past  obs.. Struck.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Stroke" Quotes from Famous Books



... stout Rising—Tantarar-ra-ra! twanged the trumpet of Antony Van Corlear;—until all voice and sound became unintelligible,—grunts of pain, yells of fury, and shouts of triumph mingling in one hideous clamor. The earth shook as if struck with a paralytic stroke; trees shrunk aghast, and withered at the sight; rocks burrowed in the ground like rabbits; and even Christina creek turned from its course, and ran up a hill ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher

... from the hollow casket a charm which men say is called the charm of Prometheus. If a man should anoint his body therewithal, having first appeased the Maiden, the only-begotten, with sacrifice by night, surely that man could not be wounded by the stroke of bronze nor would he flinch from blazing fire; but for that day he would prove superior both in prowess and in might. It shot up first-born when the ravening eagle on the rugged flanks of Caucasus let drip to the earth the blood-like ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... shoulders high and put his head forward and down, pecking savagely at the keys of the typewriter with the first fingers of both hands very much as a hen pecks at the worms or grain of corn in a dunghill and making the machine rattle at every stroke. ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh

... easy stroke. The red blurr of the fire on the point was growing larger, while the diminished blaze of lights on the high altar of the cathedral pierced the mist with ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... worlds, stellar stairs, stellar galleries, stellar hallways, stellar windows, stellar domes. How our departed friends must pity us shut up in these cramped apartments, tired if we walk fifteen miles, when they some morning, by one stroke of wing, can make circuit of the whole stellar system and be back in time for matins! Perhaps yonder twinkling constellation is the residence of the martyrs; that group of twelve luminaries is the celestial home of the Apostles. ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... licence must flourish. It is also undoubtedly true, and for the same reason, that any sudden removal of restraints necessarily involves a reaction to the opposite extreme of licence. A slave is not changed in a stroke into an ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... There water-wagtails, wood-pigeons, blue ravens, and even black storks built their nests. It was late in the year: some had eggs, and some had young birds. How they were flying about, and how they were shrieking! The strokes of the axe were heard—stroke after stroke. The trees were to be felled. Waldemar Daae was going to build a costly ship, a man-of-war with three decks, which the king would be glad to purchase: and therefore the wood—the seamen's landmark, the birds' home—was to be sacrificed. The great ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... eyewitness and the victim, in which Lord Kingsborough, Mr. Beresford, and an officer whose name he did not know, tortured two respectable Dublin tradesmen, one named John Fleming, a ferryman, the other Francis Gough, a coachmaker. The nobleman superintended the flagellation of Gough, and at every stroke insulted him with taunts and inquiries how he liked it. The unfortunate man was confined to his bed in consequence, for six months after the infliction. On Whit-Sunday, 1798, these men were again tortured with ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... and the calf and the young lion together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox: and the sucking child shall stroke the head of the adder, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the eye-ball of the basilisk. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain" (xi. 1-9) This is generally considered to be a prediction of a universal golden age on earth; but Isaiah only speaks of the holy mountain ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... and hurried down a private staircase and through dark passages to the door designated. It was only on latch, but a key was in the lock. Quickly he locked the door, and then stood listening intently. It struck ten o'clock, and as the last stroke vibrated in his ear a hand was laid upon the door latch outside, and a manly voice whispered: "Trude, open! It is I. The one whom ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... and on the scene. There are them as think ole Doc didn't treat Larry fair and square. I don't know, but anyway, just before ole Doc was struck with that stroke that finished him, Larry came home and seemed to be forgiving enough, if there had been any wrong done. He had considerable education; ole Doc had given him that chance, but Larry drifted—allas was, and still is, a drifter. We all stand pat for the feller on account of ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... seized Jesus, some of the apostles, ready to fight and die for their beloved Master, asked, "Lord, shall we smite with the sword?" Peter, waiting not for a reply, drew his sword and delivered a poorly aimed stroke at the head of one of the nearest of the crowd, whose ear was severed by the blade. The man thus wounded was Malchus, a servant of the high priest. Jesus, asking liberty of His captors by the simple request, "Suffer ye thus far,"[1246] stepped forward ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... to invite it forward and bring it to a point (figuratively speaking). The m relates it to the nares or humming tone (which is the basis of all resonance in the voice). The z sharpens the consciousness at the front, and the sk furnishes a good start for a positive stroke in the voice, while the a alone leaves us to venture upon the free tone unassisted by these guides to direction. The exercise should be practised with such musical variations as the student can learn to execute—the scale, arpeggios, etc., ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick

... to saue their houses from the rage of the fire, were kindled more in furie towards the lords, and so to reuenge themselves of them, they brought them foorth of the abbei where they had them in their hands, [Sidenote: Abr. Fl. out of Tho. Walsin. pag. 404.] and in the twilight of the euening, stroke of their heads. The earle of Salisburie (saith Thomas Walsingham) who in all his life time had bene a fauourer of the Lollards or Wickleuists, a despiser of images, a contemner of canons, and a scorner of the sacraments, ended his daies (as it ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed

... with a stroke," she said abruptly, "Georgie's father, and wants to see me. I'll have to nurse him, prob'ly, and I s'pose his sending means he's friendly again. It may just be I won't need to come back, and I'm glad, of course, for I'm worth my keep to him any day, and he'd ought ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... in his mind, and that was the proposed spire and the clock. As a result, there was the spire standing at the end of the shadowy church vivid and distinct. And there was the clock with its two copper hands exactly on the stroke of noon! ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard

... counting of time was done with deep and stately deliberation. If he would only strike the hour, that would help. David remembered with what dignity the clock could strike. The brazen reverberations of each stroke always lingered awhile before the next one came, and then, when all of them had been struck, and the last ringing beat had throbbed and swooned into a whisper, and died, one always felt that other strokes would follow. One looked for them, and waited for them, but ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott

... land forms a large bay, and near it is a town of great extent, which seemed to swarm like a bee-hive: An incredible multitude came out of it as the ship passed by, holding something in their hands which looked like a wisp of green grass, with which they seemed to stroke each other, at the same time dancing, or running in a ring. About seven miles to the westward of Point Ferrers, is another that was called Carteret Point, from which a reef of rocks, that appears above water, runs out to the distance of about a cable's ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... glad once more to hear the splendid music of a great religious soul. It awoke in him echoes distant and profound. Through the feeling of perpetual reaction, which is in vigorous natures a vital instinct, the instinct of self-preservation, the stroke which preserves the quivering balance of the boat, and gives it a new drive onward,—his surfeit of doubts and his disgust with Parisian sensuality had for the last two years been slowly restoring God to his place in Christophe's heart. Not that he believed in God. He denied God. ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... the words clotting on his tongue, spoke of the beauty of watchfulness and slashed away with the rope's end, punishing the dories as often as he hit Harvey. At last the clock in the cabin struck ten, and upon the tenth stroke little Penn crept on deck. He found two boys in two tumbled heaps side by side on the main hatch, so deeply asleep that he actually rolled them to ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling

... Jael driving the nail through the temples of Sisera. It was dashed off with remarkable power, and showed a touch or two that were actually lifelike and deathlike, as if Miriam had been standing by when Jael gave the first stroke of her murderous hammer, or as if she herself were Jael, and felt irresistibly impelled to make her bloody confession ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... remarkable, then, that in this, his sole earthly sanctuary, He who loved him with so infinite a love met him, visited him, not once or twice, but again and again, with a stern rod of chastisement? Stroke after stroke, blow after blow, stab after stab, was dealt against his very heart. 'Great and wonderful are Thy works, O Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, O King of ages. Who shall not fear ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby

... stroke more of work did he do. He lounged down on the wharves, and, with his short clay pipe stuck between his lips and his hands in his pockets, stared off at the sail-boats on the river. He sat on the door-step of the Finnigan ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... especially known for the stern justice he had meted out to the Communards of 1871.] and several others, all men of action, although none of them has the prestige which made, in 1799, the task of Bonaparte so wonderfully easy. The 'Great Unknown' will be revealed to us by some sudden stroke; our people is perfectly disposed to acknowledge a master, and prays only that 'nous ayons un bon tyran,' since we must ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... I must e'en tell them what they are wishful to hear. There ha' been five, ma'am, all this week, listening to me and then showing me their heels, but by a grand stroke of luck I have them ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie

... one with red hair is a perfect marvel at the Declaration of Independence. She'll be through addressing circulars in a little while and will run off into 'All men are created equal'—a blooming lie, by the way—without losing a stroke." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... just left the house. Owing to her father's departure, there had been plenty of material for sentences in her grammar lesson. All the child's answers to his questions had come so promptly to-day that the teacher had ended his lesson on the stroke of the hour. He also gave Cornelli special praise for the excellent work she had done. Then he ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri

... focus and worked on for a little time in silence. The light was good, her palette was full, her brushes were well-chosen, her eyes were intent on his face. It was a handsome face, displayed to the best advantage. She might look as long as she liked, and a long look preceded every stroke. ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... A hoof-stroke upon a rock, the glide and rattle of revolving wheels, voices in conversation, and now and then a calling voice, were all the sounds heard above the rustle of the mighty movement. Yet was there upon every countenance the look with which men ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... the changeful phases of public opinion, and slow to propound a plan until he had satisfied himself that it could be carried out in practice. It increased his influence, too, that he was content with a stroke of practical business here and there in the interest of party peace without claiming credit for any brilliant or ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... covered the spot where the canoe must come round the bend. He was on his own land, and he would not allow the guards to regain possession without a fight. He saw the white prow of the canoe shoot out past a tuft of saw-grass on the bend, and laid his eye to the sights. Another stroke of the paddles and the canoe was in full view, and Roger found his front sight bearing upon a button on the silken shirt which stretched taut ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... thy soul?' For this is what both say, when they invite and draw man to faith in the gospel."[4] In urging you, therefore, to trust in Christ's vicarious sufferings for sin, instead of going down to hell and suffering for sin in your own person; in entreating you to escape the stroke of justice upon yourself, by believing in Him who was smitten in your stead, who "was wounded for your transgressions and bruised for your iniquities;" in beseeching you to let the Eternal Son of God be your Substitute in this awful judicial ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... I answered. Then I thought, "I must have slept, else she could not have gone out without my knowing it."—"I heard the stroke of four and of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... We see no land, though we have passed through amongst the Friendly Islands, with the Samoa or Navigator's Islands lying to the west. It is now a clear course to Honolulu. Not being able to go on deck in the heat of the day, at risk of sun-stroke, I wait until the sun has gone down, and then slip on deck with my rug and pillow, and enjoy a siesta under the stars. But sometimes I am disturbed by a squall, and have to ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... Admire the concluding stroke. The Countess calls this letter a purely business communication. Commercial men might hardly think so; but perhaps ladies will perceive it. She rambles concentrically, if I may so expound her. Full of luxurious ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... for peace, at the head of their tribe; yet many of them returned not again, but beneath the sword-stroke of their enemies obtained that peace which no man seeketh, but ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... On the stroke of the hour, at the appointed time, Pythagoras, the youth with the beautiful hair, was there, clothed only in his beautiful hair. He knocked on the great, bronze doors, but the only answer was a ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... proved by arguing that if he is composite, his parts are prior to him, and he is neither the first, nor is he eternal, and hence not God; and the incorporeality followed from his simplicity, for all body is composite. Maimonides proved with one stroke God's existence, unity and incorporeality. For his argument from motion leads him to conceive of the first mover as a "separate" form or intellect. This clearly denotes incorporeality, for body is composed ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... strong black eye; A remnant of uneasy light, A flash of something over bright; Not long this mystery did detain My thoughts—she told in pensive strain That she had borne a heavy yoke, Been stricken by a two-fold stroke; Ill health of body; and had pined Beneath ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely

... from this amusement it was growing dark; and then the last evening was succeeded by the last night. Most of the men slept the heavy sleep of drunkenness; Wolf never closed his eyes. He heard every stroke of the clock, and the intervening half-hours seemed to ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper; another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pocket wholly into the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various

... helpless on her couch, her condition having changed very slightly for the better; she could now at times, with great effort, speak a word or two, but friends and physicians had scarcely a hope of any further improvement; she might live on thus for years, or another stroke might at any ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley

... broken sentences, reeled past Officer Foley who stood in the shadows opposite Luigi's house. He was joined silently and one at a time by half a dozen other men. Just before midnight, a woman slipped in at the front door. And on the stroke of twelve, Foley gave a whispered order. The group of officers crossed the street and one of them put a shoulder against the door ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... stood our enemy, Ingra, with exultation written on his features. He had made a master stroke, like a skillful prosecutor. ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss

... have thought that a single lightning stroke through one of the tremendous, twelve-hundred-foot trees that surrounded the compound could have felled it? Who could have predicted that it would topple toward ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Now a big hole yawned in the trunk of the spruce, like the jaws of the alligator when he basks in the sun. It grew wider and wider. The Toyman looked around to make sure that the children were well out of harm's way, then he swung once more, one great hefty stroke, and with a great crash the spruce fell and measured its length in the snow. And the Toyman put the axe and the tree too, over his shoulder—he certainly was strong, that Toyman—and through the woods they tramped back again, and loaded the tree on ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson

... father's age, He told me straight he took it in great scorn To be begot by one so base as I. My age, that ill could brook this sharp reply, Did with this wand, my lord, reach him a blow; But he, contrary laws of God and men, Did strike me such a blow in vild disdain, That with the stroke I ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... being that on which the poor infant son of the last of the Jameses, afterwards known in Parliamentary language as the Pretender, was born. The adjustment of Queen Margaret's day to that event was a stroke of policy for the purpose of rendering the poor child respectable, and removing all doubts about warming-pans and other disagreeables; but it is not known that the measure exercised the slightest ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... of the two men in the water, and I saw them struggle in order to keep themselves afloat. I gave a sigh of relief that the two men—already a long distance from us—were, by a great stroke of luck, the only two who could swim. I urged them to have courage and we would come to their rescue, although for a moment I could not think how we should do it, as we had only one paddle left and the steering gear had got torn ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... go straight on to Willis's, Joseph," said his lordship, when they began their rounds that afternoon. The stroke was simple, but, if it should only succeed, ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray

... from the awkward triangle as soon as possible. He must leave Marjory free, and Peter would look after the rest. No doubt a divorce on the grounds of desertion could be easily arranged; and thus, by that one stroke, they two would be made happy, and he—well, what the devil ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... unmoved, that of Imaizumi anxious. A glance at Kwaiba's attitude enlightened him. Politeness and a dinner were at stake. Even Natsume and Imaizumi wondered and admired at what followed. The blunder of Iemon was a stroke of genius, the inspiration of an expert player. It was a slight blunder, not obvious to the crudeness of Kwaiba; but it opened up the whole of Iemon's position and put the game in his antagonist's hands. Kwaiba promptly seized the advantage. ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... his brother dreamers John Buckhurst quietly cancelled the entire programme at one stroke, and nobody understood that it was cancelled when, in a community founded upon equality and fraternity, he raised another edifice to crown it, a sort of working model as an example to the world, but limited. And down went democracy without ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... By a process of the most horrible kind of enchantment Una is enabled to remove the boy so as to elude the count, and gets possession of the key of an enchanted place on which the boy is chained. She gets him down from it—the clock is seen just near the stroke of one—she resolves to push the hand forward—Hardyknute seizes and is about despatching her, when Leolyn with difficulty mounts to the clock, pushes forward the hand and it strikes one—the demon appears, seizes the count in his claws—the earth opens, and the demon carries him down, in the same ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... from this, the water in the bay had been piled up to quite an unusual height by the gale; hence when the storm had subsided and the ocean had once more found its normal level the wreck was left little short of high and dry. This was quite a stroke of good luck for us; for we subsequently discovered that the range of tide in that particular part of the ocean was so exceedingly small that, even at high-water, we were able to wade right out to the wreck, while the ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... place, the end of it might very well be a riot; therefore, in proportion as the time advanced, the agitation grew greater. Nine o'clock, half-past nine, a quarter to ten struck, without anything happening to confirm or destroy their hopes. At last the first stroke of ten was heard; all eyes turned towards the chimney: ten o'clock struck slowly, each stroke vibrating in the heart of the multitude. At last the tenth stroke trembled, then vanished shuddering into space, and, a great cry breaking simultaneously ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Newall!" The words froze up all the warmer feelings in Paul's breast. It was as though Stanley had taken a knife from his pocket, and with one cruel stroke severed the last bond of friendship between them, and had then bound with firmer hand the bonds that ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... of their own; forts being attacked and occupied, the foreign houses of business at Canton being burned down, and rewards offered for foreigners' heads. In January, 1857, an attempt was actually made in Hongkong to get rid of all foreigners at one fell stroke, in which plot there is no doubt that the local officials at Canton were deeply implicated. The bread was one day found to be poisoned with arsenic, but so heavily that little mischief was done. The only possible end to ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... shoemaking. The time has come when you must retire, and devote all your undivided energies to the constant study of modern criticism. Whether you come to Oxford or stop in London, I've made up my mind that you shan't do another stroke of work as long as you live. Look here, dear old Daddy, I'm getting to be a perfect millionaire, I assure you. Do you see this fiver? well, I got that for knocking out that last trashy little song for Fradelli; and it cost me no more trouble to compose it than to sit ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... men's strength, Light of life-days and length, And glory of earth seen under and stars above, And years that bring to tame Now the wild falcon fame, Now, to stroke smooth, the dove-white breast of love; The life unlived, the unsown seeds, Suns unbeholden, songs ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... of the whole, strange matter—the thought, namely, of that same Child of Promise who, predestined to bear the last and heaviest stroke of retributive justice, should, bearing it rightly, bring salvation to his race—which obtained with Dickie on the fair Sunday morning in question. It refused to quit him. It affected him through all his being. It appealed to the poetry, the idealism, of his ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... be quite a story," continued the captain, "and it is nigh on to eight bells now. Suppose you come around here this afternoon after your swim—no, best after dinner," he corrected himself. "The men have to eat on the stroke of twelve, then we have drill, and some government messages to explain—make it two-thirty," he said finally, "and we'll see what we ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... for building, the bee's skill for hiving, the lion's stroke is less than man's trip-hammer, the deer's swift flight is slowness to man's electric speed, the eagle itself cannot outrun his flying speech. It is as if all the excellences of the whole animal creation were swept together ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... Maternus the highwayman's life; it was he who told me Maternus is really Sextus, son of Maximus. His knowledge of that secret gives me a certain hold on Pertinax! Caesar would have his head off at a word from me. But the best way with Pertinax is to stroke the honest side of him —the charcoal-burner side of him—the peasant side, if that can be done without making him too diffident. He is perfectly capable of offering the throne to some one else at ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... on beneath the line and a whiting and a couple of small plaice were taken off. Then more bait had disappeared, and then the last hook was being hauled up when Will snatched at the hook, made a sharp stroke with it, twisted it round, and held it under water for a minute before dragging out a nasty grey-looking bag, all tentacles, and with a couple of ugly eyes, which dropped from the hook as Will ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... tree that on the side Of Ida yields to axe her soaring pride And lightlier waves her leafy crown, and swings From side to side—so on his crest the wings Erect seemed shaking upwards, and to sag The spear's point, and the burden'd head to wag Before the stricken body felt the stroke, Or the strong knees grew lax, or the heart broke. Breathless they waited; then the failing man Stiffened anew his neck, and changed and wan Looked for the last time in the face of day, And seemed to dare the Gods such might to slay As this, the sanguine splendid thing he was, Withal ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... Smugglers with an Intent that it should be seiz'd and expos'd to Publick View; which happen'd accordingly, and made its first Appearance at a Great Man's House on that Coast, whose Lady claim'd it as her peculiar Property. In it she first struck at Court what the learned in Dress call a bold Stroke; and was thereupon constituted General of the British Ladies during the War. Upon the Whole this Invention did not answer. The Ladies suffer'd a little the first Winter, but after that were so thoroughly harden'd that they improv'd upon the Contrivers by adding near 2 Yards to its Extension, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... sustained, equable stroke, with a little draw to it, but what they felt most was his unfairness in stopping to talk between executions. Thus: "Among the—lower classes this would lay me open to a charge of—assault. You should be more grateful for your—privileges ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... Protestant was ever supposed to believe) he leads the reader, however, by the hand, to make applications against the English clergy, and then he never faileth to triumph, as if he had made a very shrewd and notable stroke. And because the court and kingdom seemeth disposed to moderation with regard to Dissenters, more perhaps than is agreeable to the hot unreasonable temper of some mistaken men among us; therefore under the shelter of that popular opinion, he ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... spreadin' compost; then gatherin' manure, fencin' and ditchin'; and then turn tu and fall ploughin' agin. It all went round like a wheel without stoppin', and so fast, I guess you couldn't see the spokes, just one long everlastin' stroke from July to etarnity, without time to look back on the tracks. Instead of racin' over the country like a young doctor, to show how busy a man is that has nothin' to do, as Bluenose does, and then take a ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... now a hanger-on at the village tavern, or that section of it known as the bar, wiped his watery eyes with his tremulous fist, as he saw Jack come swinging down, and, as he swept past, with his open gait, powerful stroke and stifles playing well out, brought his hand down with a mighty slap against his thigh, and said: "I'll be blowed if he isn't a regular ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... threats could no longer be kept aloft. The compliance demanded was clearly, decisively refused. The threats must either be executed or must fall to the ground amid general derision. But the moment that the threat was put in execution its power as a threat had ceased. With the first stroke against the life of the nation all great and noble motives, instead of being balanced against each other, were drawing together in the same direction. It ought not to have been a surprise to the religious leaders of disunion, ecclesiastical and political, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... interest. If they apply their capital not to the acquisition of the plant and machinery of manufacture with the view of regulating production, but directly and mainly to the planning of some speculative stroke or series of strokes in the produce market, obtaining temporary control of sufficient goods of a particular kind to enable them to manipulate prices, they are said to form a "corner" or "ring." Such forms of combined action are generally of short duration. Technically they consist ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... black shadow of the canoe. One swift surge of her shoulders, one leap, the splash of the stern in the water and the swift stroke of the paddle, and she would ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... admired. It was just the same with my dear husband. He was a tall, beautiful man, and sometimes in the evening he would come down into the kitchen and say: 'Wife, I would like to be stupid for two minutes.' Nothing rested him so much then as for me to stroke his head." ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield

... before that, in the time of Anderson, the old cashier, who had died, much strange juggling had been done with the records. The railroad in New Mexico had apparently drained the banker's private fortune, and he determined to retrieve it by one stroke. This was nothing less than the looting of the bank's securities, turning them into money, and ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... work or work to play, so that there should be the least possible time between. It is the 'time between' that is the 'slacker's' kingdom, and Scott lived less in it than anyone I can recall. Again, I found him the best of losers, with a shout of delight for every good stroke by an opponent: what is called an ideal sportsman. He was very neat and correct in his dress, quite a model for the youth who come after him, but that we take as a matter of course; it is 'good form' in the Navy. His temper I should have ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... of Singapore; and the little village in which they established themselves then numbered but 150 inhabitants, although, thanks to Sir Stamford Raffles, a town soon rose on the site of the unpretending cabins of the natives. By a wise stroke of policy all customs-duties were abolished; and the natural advantages of the new city, with its extensive and secure port, were supplemented and perfected ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... what a chance!" he muttered to himself. "What a stroke of luck! A new start in life, offering change and freedom." Yet he must lose it—and all for a paltry hundred pounds. Paltry—no; to him it represented a huge and unattainable fortune; there wasn't a soul from whom he could borrow; ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... lacked ten thousand francs for the first payments. To his mind the position did not seem desperate; for like an adventurer who lives from day to day, he saw only the present moment. He resolved to attempt, before the news of his embarrassments was made public, what seemed to him a great stroke, and seek out the famous Francois Keller, banker, orator, and philanthropist, celebrated for his benevolence and for his desire to serve the interests of Parisian commerce,—with the view, we may add, of being always returned to the Chamber as ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... Thus by a stroke of Lord John Russell's pen, the whole of the pet scheme of the ruling party, devised after three months' anxious local legislation, was irrecoverably lost. And yet it was not lost, for by the after careful manipulation of Lord John ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... immediately made for the departure of the boy-king to take possession of his Spanish throne and crown. The pomp-loving French king had decided to invest the occasion with great splendor. He regarded it as a signal stroke of policy, and a great victory on his part, that he had been enabled, notwithstanding the remonstrances of other nations, to place a French Bourbon prince upon the throne of Spain, thus virtually uniting the two nations. He thought he had thus extended the domain ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... to Caesar by the five leading Independents had by no means pleased the rest of the Assembly. Though they acknowledged the great ability and even the moderation of the dissentients, they thought it an unfriendly stroke of policy on their part to have thus sheltered themselves by anticipation under the power outside. But, indeed, it was more than a stroke of personal policy. The five knew that they were speaking not for themselves ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... said the Prince. "Why, we should have thought by your home thrust this morning that you were as fresh as the early lark. In good faith, it was a pretty stroke! And whence come you, then, ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... mouth to speak and closed it again, pursing it up precisely as once more he addressed himself to the balls, and this time brought off a really brilliant stroke. ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... 1812, when Marmont was concentrating his forces in the Salamanca district, with the intent (it was rumoured) of marching and retaking Ciudad Rodrigo, which the Allies had carried by assault in January. This stroke, if delivered with energy, Lord Wellington could parry; but only at the cost of renouncing a success on which he had set his heart, the capture of Badajos. Already he had sent forward the bulk of his troops with his siege-train on the ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... and as it were upon the stroke; as soon as the royal countenance is withdrawn they come to an end. And so within half-an-hour of the retirement of the royal party all the great suite of chambers was empty, and in less than an hour light and movement had ceased in all that ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... raw material—she produces practically every commodity. She has a great and growing population, a virile and industrious people. Her resources are overflowing and she has labor to develop them in abundance. By a stroke of the pen Russia has since the war began enormously increased her resources by suppressing the sale of all alcoholic liquors. [Cheers.] It can hardly be realized that by that means alone she has increased the productivity of her labor by something between 30 and 50 per ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... me; you do not see me as I am. In reality, I am not sociable, and I lack, absolutely, suppleness, delicacy, politeness, as much in my character as in my manners. Being so, how can I obtain a large practice, or succeed, unless it is by some stroke of luck? I have counted on the luck, but its hour has not yet sounded. Because I lack suppleness I have not been able to win the sympathy or interest of my masters. They see only my reserve; and because I stay away from them, as much through timidity as pride, they do ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot

... the court were laid before me. There was the certificate of the two physicians. And there, over their signatures, "Mercier d.m.p." standing first, in a bold heavy hand underscored by a single broad quill-stroke, was this "Conclusion": ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... organs. The lips and tongue are also thus nervously connected with these vital parts, and, so, if the husband will "play" with his wife's breasts, especially with her nipples, manipulating them with his fingers, or, better still, with his lips and tongue—at the same time, if he will stroke her vulva with his fingers, especially the clitoris, and if she will encourage him to do this, by holding her breast with one hand, shaking it about as her nipple is in her lover's lips; if, lying flat on ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long

... one—two—three motions. And just as I'd lamed myself in a lot of new places there would come the swimming lesson. I thought I could swim some, too. I learned one summer down at Far Rockaway. But it seems that was old stuff. They aren't doing that now. No, it's the double side stroke, the Australian crawl, and a lot more. One, two, three, four, five, six. Legs straight, chin down, and roll on the three. And if you dream it's a pleasure to have a big husk of an instructor pump your arms back and forth ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford

... hour chatting with Mrs. Riley, and had never found her so "nice" a person before; so easy comes human fellowship when we have had a stroke of fortune. When he went again to his room there was Mary kneeling by the bedside, with her head slipped under the snowy mosquito net, all in fine linen, white as the moonlight, frilled and broidered, a remnant of her wedding glory gleaming through the long, heavy ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... it was clear to Lady Florimel that if her father had not forgotten her undertaking, but was, as she believed, expecting from her some able stroke of diplomacy, it was high time that something should be done to save her credit. Nor did she forget that the unpiped silence of the royal burgh was the memento of a practical joke of her father, so cruel that a piper would not accept ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... particular, accept a compromise and begin to relieve the digestive tract when a suitable space has been made in the cell through the gradual disappearance of the victuals. Others again—more hurried these—find means of obeying the common law pretty early by engaging in stercoral manufactures. By a stroke of genius, they make the unpleasant obstruction into building-bricks. We already know the art of the Lily-beetle (Crioceris merdigera. Fabre's essay on this insect has not yet been translated into English; but readers interested in the matter ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... first hand and in 1887 I built one on the Otto four-cycle model just to see if I understood the principles. "Four cycle" means that the piston traverses the cylinder four times to get one power impulse. The first stroke draws in the gas, the second compresses it, the third is the explosion or power stroke, while the fourth stroke exhausts the waste gas. The little model worked well enough; it had a one-inch bore and a three-inch stroke, operated with gasoline, and while it did not develop much power, it was ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... breast. Do the affections cease with life? Was it contrary to the will of the Almighty that the mourner should taste this consolation? Did individuality lose itself in death, and with it memory? Or did one stroke destroy spirit and body? These anxious doubts, which have before now agitated many who reflect on such subjects, exercised their power over Edward's mind with an intensity that none can imagine save one whose position is in any ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various

... the bend of the stream, where it turned and was lost in the lindens, She saw the last dip and the gleam of the oars ere they vanished forever. Still afar on the waters the song, like bridal bells distantly chiming, The stout, jolly boatmen prolong, beating time with the stroke of their paddles; And Winona's ear, turned to the breeze, lists the air falling fainter and fainter Till it dies like the murmur of bees when the sun is aslant on the meadows. Blow, breezes,—blow softly and sing in the dark, flowing hair of the maiden; But never ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... just beaten Christian; I made the red ball, I made the white, and then the double stroke; I made all! Mademoiselle, I have just beaten Christian two games; is it not glorious? He made only eighteen points in a single game. Pere Rousselet, I have just beaten Christian! Do you know how ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... spring, a white summer." He describes the grove itself, with its hedge of trees, so thick that an arrow could hardly pass through, its pines and fruit-trees and tall poplars within, and the water, like pale gold, running from the conduits. It is one of those famous poplars that receives the first stroke; it sounds heavily to its companion trees, and Demeter perceives that her sacred grove is suffering. Then comes one of those transformations which Plato will not allow. Vainly anxious to save the lad from his ruin, she appears in the form of a priestess, but with the long ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... d'Aubray was selected by his daughter for the first victim. At one blow she would free herself from the inconvenience of his rigid censorship, and by inheriting his goods would repair her own fortune, which had been almost dissipated by her husband. But in trying such a bold stroke one must be very sure of results, so the marquise decided to experiment beforehand on another person. Accordingly, when one day after luncheon her maid, Francoise Roussel, came into her room, she gave her a slice of mutton and some preserved gooseberries ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... able to swim a stroke," declared Norton. "I'll just be doubled up laughing at Hath in that blue-striped thing ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour

... Venice on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand: I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged lion's marble piles, Where Venice sat in state, throned in her ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... leap came plump into the chariot where Bridget sat, and crouched at her feet, quietly as a dog would. He was no tame wolf, but a wild one, who had never before felt a human being's hand upon him. Yet he let Bridget pat and stroke him, and say nice things into his great ear. And he kept perfectly still by her side until the chariot rumbled up to ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown

... but there must have been a cart or a cab, or some vehicle in the affair. It is clear enough that this belongs to the haute pegre, none of your common burglars would have attempted such a daring stroke; and I would lay a wager, too, that they're not so far off from here, if they're in Paris, that is. I shall keep a sharp look-out, for the ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... unlikely that the Pterodactyls could fly far, for they have at most a weak keel on their breast-bone; on the other hand, some of them show a marked fusion of dorsal vertebrae, which, as in flying birds, must have served as a firm fulcrum for the stroke of the wings. The quaint creatures varied from the size of a sparrow up to a magnificent spread of 15-20 feet from tip to tip of the wings. They were the ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... was a graduate of the Conservatoire, an ex-stroke, crew of '91, owned a pair of shears which he used twice a year in the vaults of a downtown bank, and breakfasted every day at twelve—but none of these things had ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... speechifying; especially to an unpractised orator. I never conceived, till now, what toil the temperance lecturers undergo for my sake. Hereafter, they shall have the business to themselves. Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke or two, just to wet my whistle. Thank you, sir! My dear hearers, when the world shall have been regenerated by my instrumentality, you will collect your useless vats and liquor-casks into one great pile, and make a bonfire, in honor of the Town Pump. And, when I shall have decayed, like my predecessors, ...
— A Rill From the Town Pump (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... under the Austrian General, Boehm-Ermolli, was fighting there was a slight gap. Through this—just west of Piotrkow—an attack could be made against the right wing of Von Mackensen's army. To meet this stroke a small separate army was formed under the command of the Austrian cavalry general, Von Tersztyansky, consisting of one German brigade, one Austro-Hungarian brigade, and a cavalry division. This shows the close ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... they be serious men, and real forces in the world, we may conclude that they have been too much and too long absorbed; that their tasks and responsibilities long ago rose about them like a flood, and have kept them swimming with sturdy stroke the years through, their eyes level with the troubled surface—no horizon in sight, no passing fleets, no comrades but those who struggle in the flood like themselves. If they be frivolous, lightheaded, men without purpose or achievement, ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... appeared, and there was the sound of the axe busy in the woods; not the ringing sound of the bright large English axe, this being wanted in the stroke of ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... proceed no farther, being himself unfortunately blinded by a stroke of the impatient youth's switch across his eyes. Enraged at once by the smart and the indignity, the falconer started up, and darkling as he was, for his eyes watered too fast to permit his seeing any thing, he would soon have been at close grips ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... was only moderately well off and had no special standing either socially or in the world of science. But she married me and, as I may say, she married me handsomely; by which I mean that she always treated our marriage as a great stroke of good fortune for her, as if the advantages were all on her side instead of on mine. As a result, we were absolutely devoted to each other. Our life was all that married life could be and that it so seldom is. We were inseparable. In our work, in our play, ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... him on the shores of lake Erie or Michigan, or on the banks of the Mississippi; and wherever he goes he makes an impression favorable to his purposes. He is now upon the last round to put a finishing stroke to his work. I hope, however, before his return that that part of the fabric which he considered complete, will be demolished, and even its foundations rooted up. Although the greater part of his followers are attached to him from principle ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... both the high pitch of the romantic and the ironic and the opposed abyss of the real came together in it—required, in the wondrous way, the consecration of the event. The event came indeed not in the manner prefigured by him in the repeatedly perfect line, that of the received death-stroke, the fall in action, discounted as such; which might have seemed very much because even the harsh logic and pressure of history were tender of him at the last and declined to go through more than the form of their function, discharging it with the least violence and surrounding ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... him and his instrument— his instrument which is made of wood or ivory— a sort of indefinable friendship. He knows by experience that it has taken years to establish this mysterious rapport between an inert material and himself. He could not have divined at the first stroke all its resources and caprices, its faults and its virtues. His instrument only became a soul for him and a source of melody after long study; he only came to understand it as two friends ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith

... even of ennui; the lips moved as if in nervous impatience until she had found the phrase or the thought for which her pen waited. Save for these intervals, she wrote with quick decision, in a large clear hand, never underlining, but frequently supplying the emphasis of heavy stroke in her penning of a word. At the end of her letters came a signature excellent ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... animal never before had felt the lash of a whip. The blow had the effect desired by the dwarf. It broke the gait of the bay horse. The stroke was so unexpected and painful that the horse gave a bound forward and upward that almost unseated the rider. Then he plunged along the track with irregular strides, sometimes rushing to the sides ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick



Words linked to "Stroke" :   lottery, motility, movement, shot, attack, oarsman, golf shot, stroke play, punctuation mark, key stroke, swing, caress, tennis stroke, diagonal, underscore, accident, hemorrhagic stroke, fondle, bow, undercut, hit, play, cam stroke, tennis shot, cut, print, instroke, hair stroke, flick, break, follow-through, virgule, ischaemic stroke, beat, backhand stroke, masse shot, travel, throw, cerebrovascular accident, manoeuvre, swipe, sport, forehand stroke, underline, baseball swing, stroking, chance event, apoplexy, slash, cannon, happening, golf stroke, haemorrhagic stroke, solidus, four-stroke engine, swimming stroke, row, strike, golf, CVA, masse, occurrent, athletics, carom, maneuver, happenstance, touch, natural event, flatter, downstroke, ischemic stroke, blandish, rower, miscue, punctuation, score, blow, golf game



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