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Viper   Listen
noun
viper  n.  
1.
(Zool.) Any one of numerous species of Old World venomous snakes belonging to Vipera, Clotho, Daboia, and other genera of the family Viperidae. "There came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand." Note: Among the best-known species are the European adder (Pelias berus), the European asp (Vipera aspis), the African horned viper (Vipera cerastes), and the Indian viper (Daboia Russellii).
2.
A dangerous, treacherous, or malignant person. "Who committed To such a viper his most sacred trust Of secrecy."
3.
Loosely, any venomous or presumed venomous snake.
Horned viper. (Zool.) See Cerastes.
Red viper (Zool.), the copperhead.
Viper fish (Zool.), a small, slender, phosphorescent deep-sea fish (Chauliodus Sloanii). It has long ventral and dorsal fins, a large mouth, and very long, sharp teeth.
Viper's bugloss (Bot.), a rough-leaved biennial herb (Echium vulgare) having showy purplish blue flowers. It is sometimes cultivated, but has become a pestilent weed in fields from New York to Virginia. Also called blue weed.
Viper's grass (Bot.), a perennial composite herb (Scorzonera Hispanica) with narrow, entire leaves, and solitary heads of yellow flowers. The long, white, carrot-shaped roots are used for food in Spain and some other countries. Called also viper grass.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Viper" Quotes from Famous Books



... dust and heat? Why does he neither, in military accouterments, appear mounted among his equals; nor manage the Gallic steed with bitted reins? Why fears he to touch the yellow Tiber? Why shuns he the oil of the ring more cautiously than viper's blood? Why neither does he, who has often acquired reputation by the quoit, often by the javelin having cleared the mark, any longer appear with arms all black-and-blue by martial exercises? Why is he concealed, as they say the ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... only concerned with the injuries inflicted by the venomous varieties of snakes, the most important of which are the hooded snakes of India, the rattle-snakes of America, the horned snakes of Africa, the viper of Europe, and the adder of the ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... than once forced upon the mother's heart the conviction, that in that distant land, this frail being, after all, might prove the stronger of the two. Daily she warned them of the temptations and snares that would beset their path, and taught them to zealously shun such, as they would a viper in their way. They listened and promised; and when the expected day of departure arrived, bade her adieu in the midst of her tears, and prayers, and blessings. Thus was the widow left utterly alone; yet in her faith she felt not forsaken, knowing that the Father of the ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... millions, and another in favor of itself of seventy-seven millions. Both added together made more than a hundred and fifty millions, which would reduce the expenses below those of the traitor, murderer, viper, and unpleasant person known ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... A Viper entered a carpenter's shop, and went from one to another of the tools, begging for something to eat. Among the rest, he addressed himself to the File, and asked for the favour of a meal. The File replied in a tone of pitying contempt, "What a simpleton you ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... stag's horn, the heads of mice, the eyes of crabs, owl's brains, liver of frogs, viper's fat, grasshoppers, bats, etc., these supplied the alkalis which were prescribed. Physicians were accustomed to order doses of the gall of wild swine. It is presumed the tame hog was not sufficiently ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... expect it o' thet viper, lad? No, he's an enemy to the death. But whar did yer come from, and have yer found out ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill

... is Natacha. I was sure that the Villa des Iles had its viper. I tell you she doesn't dare leave her nest because she knows she is watched. Not one of her movements outside escapes us! She knows it. She has been warned. The last time she ventured outside alone was to go into the old quarters of Derewnia. What has she to do in such a rotten quarter? ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... With this in view, he persuades Vicentio that Evadne is the king's fille d'amour, and that she marries him merely as a flimsy cloak, but he adds "Never mind, it will make your fortune." The proud Neapolitan is disgusted, and flings off Evadne as a viper. Her brother is indignant, challenges the troth-plight lover to a duel, and Vicentio falls. Ludovico now irritates Colonna by talking of the king's amour, and induces him to invite the king to a banquet and then murder him. The king goes to the banquet, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... martial law shall punish thy offence. And you, [To the Christian Priest. Who saucily teach monarchs to obey, And the wide world in narrow cloisters sway; Set up by kings as humble aids of power, You that which bred you, viper-like, devour, You ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... My life is ebbing away. O thou of large eyes, for thy sake it is, O thou of the splendour of the filaments of the lotus, that Kama is incessantly piercing me with his keen shafts without stopping for a moment! O amiable and cheerful girl, I have been bitten by Kama who is even like a venomous viper. O thou of swelling and large hips, have mercy on me! O thou of handsome and faultless features, O thou of face like unto the lotus-petal or the moon, O thou of voice sweet as that of singing Kinnaras, my life ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... so to him briony is "a furious martial plant," and brank ursine "an excellent plant under the dominion of the moon." Of rosemary he says, "the sun claims privilege in it, and it is under the celestial ram," and of viper's bugloss, "it is a most gallant herb of the sun." The bay-tree rouses him to real eloquence, though not for Apollo's sake. "It is a tree of the sun and under the celestial sign of Leo, and resists witchcraft very ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... the universe. To know all to be illusion, cheat—itself the most cheated of races; lured on to a career of sacrifice and contempt. If he could only keep the hope that had hallowed its sufferings. But now it was a viper—not a divine hope—it had nourished in its bosom. He felt so lonely; a great stretch of blackness, a barren mere, a gaunt cliff on a frozen sea, a pine on a mountain. To be done with it all—the sighs and the sobs and the tears, the heart-sinking, the dull dragging days of wretchedness and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... sick-chamber. She readily lent an ear to the insinuations which Scarfe, also bitterly hurt, freely let out, and persuaded herself miserably that her boy was in the hands of an adventurer who had cajoled not only the boy but the father, and in short personated the proverbial viper at ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... lurid shagginess around it. Sir J. D. Hooker, in describing this species in the Botanical Magazine, t. 6, 152, says that the aspect of the curved scape as it bears aloft its buds and hairy flowers is very suggestive of the head and body of a viper about to strike. Dr. Haughton, F.R.S., told me long ago that Darlingtonia californica always reminds him of a cobra when raised and puffed out in a rage, and certainly the likeness is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various

... next appointment is to the "Viper", a brig which is barely stable. They almost upset on one occasion, and then really do sink when off the coast of Africa. Our friends and a couple of other seamen are lucky enough to have got off on a simple ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston

... let me grasp that hated, damned viper, that would gnaw the heart's core of Bertha. Give me the key of your misery; O! bless me—bless your Bertha; give me those accursed manuscripts, daggers bequeathed you by a false friend, that I may at once, in your ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... contempt and scorn{195}. It was not unfrequently the latter. Thus at Sir Walter Raleigh's trial (1603), Coke, when argument and evidence failed him, insulted the defendant by applying to him the term 'thou':—"All that Lord Cobham did was at thy instigation, thou viper, for I thou thee, thou traitor". And when Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night is urging Sir Andrew Aguecheek to send a sufficiently provocative challenge to Viola, he suggests to him that he "taunt him with the ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... school of Charles the Second. I see that you are sincere; but sincerity renders a bad passion the more hateful. Now leave me. For your own contentment crush it. If this is impossible, conceal it. Should you ever again intimate it by even a glance, I will expel you from my society as I would a viper.' ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... never have kicked a man when he was down,' he said. 'He would have tried to do good even to the viper he had nourished.' ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... The viper's come; his fears have drawn him hither, And now, my Lords, be Ch[ro]nicled for ever, And give me justice against this vile Monster, This bastard of ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... 501. This word properly means, 'a female viper;' but it here refers to the Hydra, or dragon of the marsh of Lerna, which Hercules slew. It was fabled to be partly a woman, and partly a serpent, and to have been begotten by Typhon. According to some accounts, this ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... wild by want, Roamest for prey, yea thy unnatural hand 280 Dost lift to deeds of blood! O pale-eyed form, The victim of seduction, doomed to know Polluted nights and days of blasphemy; Who in loathed orgies with lewd wassailers Must gaily laugh, while thy remembered Home 285 Gnaws like a viper at thy secret heart! O agd Women! ye who weekly catch The morsel tossed by law-forced charity, And die so slowly, that none call it murder! O loathly suppliants! ye, that unreceived 290 Totter heart-broken from the closing gates Of the full Lazar-house; or, gazing, stand, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... beautiful cerulean bells. There too we behold wild scabiouses, mallows, the woody nightshade, wood-betony, and centaury; the red and white-striped convolvulus also throws its flowers under your feet; corn fields glow with whole armies of scarlet poppies, cockle, and the rich azure plumes of viper's-bugloss; even thistles, the curse of Cain, diffuse a glow of beauty over wastes and barren places. Some species, particularly the musk thistles, are really noble plants, wearing their formidable arms, their silken vest, and their gorgeous crimson tufts of fragrant flowers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various

... with a curse, as all the rest did that ever knew you, and as you deserve, I bought your consent to lead a respectable life, and be blessed with a virtuous love. You took the bribe, but robbed me of the blessing—viper! You have destroyed me, body and soul—monster! perhaps blighted her happiness as well; you she-devils hate an angel worse than Heaven hates you. But you shall suffer with us; not your heart, for you have none, but your pocket. You have broken faith with me, and sent all my happiness to hell; I'll ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... bosom—and there supplied my parental loss—with every tender care— indulgent dalliance, and with all the sweet persuasion that maternal fondness, religious precept, polished manners, and hourly example could administer—she fostered me: [weeps.] and shall I now turn viper,—and with black ingratitude sting the tender heart that thus hath cherished me? shall I seduce her house's heir, and kill her peace?—No—though I loved to the mad extreme of female fondness; though every worldly bliss that woman's vanity or man's ambition could desire, followed the indulgence ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin

... indeed, trying to puzzle out the secret of that repugnance, having no particular dread of a snake's bite, like one of his companions, who had put his hand into the mouth of an old garden-god and roused there a sluggish viper. A kind of pity even mingled with his aversion, and he could hardly have killed or injured the animals, which seemed already to suffer by the very circumstance of their life, being what they [24] were. It was something like a fear of the supernatural, or perhaps rather a moral feeling, for the ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... 'It's a thing as ud get a saint to set his back up. I was down i' the bridge leasowe bare an hour ago, and who should I see but that young imp of a Reddy along wi' that old viper of a Bubb. Thee know'st ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... Hinkley, who re-entered the room at this moment, and had heard the last words of the speaker. "You shall not leave the house. Had I fifty sons, and they were all to behave in the manner of this viper, they should all leave it before you should stir from ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... most inexcusable of murders. Is it any worse when a whole great nation is set free as well as a family? By this warning to Sweden we shall probably prevent war and not precipitate it, and save many thousand lives rather more valuable than the life of that viper. Oh, I'm not talking sophistry or seriously justifying the thing, but the slavery that held him and his country was a thousand times less justifiable. If I'd really been sharp I should have guessed it from his smooth, deadly smiling at dinner that night. Do ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... doing? that is our enemy, our bitterest enemy. He has only sold you the estate to spite us, not for the love of you. I had—we had—we mortified his vanity. It was not our fault: he is a viper. Sir, pray, pray, pray be on ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... but as it is difficult to get red cloth, except in the shape of handkerchiefs, a substitution has been made, the two colors having a close mythologic relation. In former days a piece of buckskin and the small glossy, seeds of the Viper's Bugloss (Echium vulgare) were used instead of the cloth and beads. The formulistic name for the bead is sn[)i]kta, which the priests are unable to analyze, the ordinary word for beads or ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... rather hard to describe. My father used to say that she had the brains of a rabbit and the tongue of a viper, and perhaps that best explains her. She meant to be kind, I think, but she was without exception the silliest and most empty-headed person I have ever known. I do not say this unkindly; she gave me what she could, and ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay

... quoted and put in such a light as to seem to be robberies. It was a dangerous letter for her—half truth, half falsehood, difficult to unravel, impossible to deny entirely. 'Honour binds you, you say,' the epistle continued. 'Ah! my Prince! you have a toy which has turned to a viper in your hand! Throw it from you! Other princes have done so, and the world has applauded. Take a fair and noble mistress, one younger, less rapacious. Consider this woman: already she grows gross; in a few years' time she will be a mountain of flesh; her ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... bottom by a monk in his full dress and cowl. In the foreground in front of each monk was a plant of the deadly nightshade, and over his head a sprig of the same, while in the lower part was the figure of a wivern—i.e. a viper or dragon with a serpent-like tail—this being the device of Thomas Plantagenet, the second Earl of Lancaster, who was highly esteemed by the monks. We did not notice any nightshade plant either in or near the ruins of the abbey, but it was referred to in Stell's description of Becan-Gill ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... occasional puff of his cigar, suddenly shot into silent activity as the two men turned their backs on him and bent, apparently absorbed, over the desk in the corner. Like a flash (it reminded me of the lightning-like movement of a viper) his long, thin fingers went into a waistcoat pocket; like a flash emerged, shot to the glasses on the table and into two of them dropped something small and white—some tabloid or pellet—that sank and dissolved as rapidly as it was put in. It was all over, all done, within, ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... with hard-earned money! Brother denies himself, denies his family, and gives her cash to buy rags, and now she and a stranger are cursing us for the shelter we gave her. It makes me sick! Why don't I die! I'm shedding tears of blood. We've warmed a viper in our bosom. [Leans against the fence] I'll wait, I'll wait. I'll tell her everything, everything that's seething ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... tell you, it is not such a paltry vengeance that will satisfy me! Would to Heaven I had trusted only my own arm from the first! Would to Heaven that, instead of having anything to say to the cursed brood of the law, I had taken the viper by the throat, and brought him to my own ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... from a trance, clasped his hands tightly together, and lifted them above his head,—then springing up, he drew back from me, as if I were a viper coiling ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... Smart, Poole and Smart of the Plainstones. Of these I had seen two, and heard the busy important voice of the third in another room as we descended the stairs. They were all men very different from the viper whom my grandmother had caught as in a bag. Even Mr. Smart was a gentleman. For if he had a flannel dressing-gown on, one could see the sparkle of his paste buckles at knee and instep, and his hose were of the best black silk, as good as Doctor Gillespie's on Sacrament Sabbath ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... fares it, Beverley? Honest Mr. Jarvis, well met; I hoped to find you here. That viper Williams! Was it not He that ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore

... of hollow cylinder, called a barrel, in which the spring is enclosed, and removed the steel spiral, but instead of relaxing itself, according to the laws of its elasticity, it remained coiled on itself like a sleeping viper. It seemed knotted, like impotent old men whose blood has long been congealed. Master Zacharius vainly essayed to uncoil it with his thin fingers, the outlines of which were exaggerated on the wall; but he tried in vain, and soon, with a terrible cry of anguish and rage, he threw ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... she dreamed that she was conceiued of a Uiper: for, the young Uiper alwaies killeth his dame. He was not onely a Uiper to his mo- ther whom he killed, but also to his kyngdome and common wealthe a destroier, whiche afterward shalbe shewed, what [Sidenote: Nero a viper[.]] a tyraunte and bloodie gouernour he was. This Nero made in the Citee of Rome, the rounde seates and scaffoldes, to be- holde spectacles and sightes, and also the bathes. He subdued [Sidenote: Pontus. Colchis. Cappadocia. ...
— A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike • Richard Rainolde

... designation of the plant, but he had long ago been taught the valuable properties of its leaves as an antidote against the bite of the most poisonous snakes. He had known them to cure the bite of the cascabel (rattle-snake), and even of the small spotted viper, the most poisonous of all the ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... took no such responsibility, but referred the whole matter to Congress, while relaxing not one whit of his vigilance. Leslie then asked permission to purchase supplies for his army, that he might evacuate Charleston. The wary Greene refused to allow it, for in so doing he might be nourishing a viper that ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... sacred, and it is a sin against the god if any man touch them. But in a short space came Ion with a troop of armed men, breathing out threats and fury against the Queen. And when he saw her he said, "What a viper is this that thou hast brought forth, land of Attica! Worse is she than the drop of Gorgon's blood wherewith she would have slain me. Seize her that she may be thrown from the rock. 'Tis well for me that I set not foot in her house in Athens; for then had she caught me in a net, and I had surely ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church

... in thy mouth, Ramsay Stanhope, that thou shouldst turn traitor? Viper and imp of Satan!" he shouted, shaking his clinched fist in my face. "Was it not enough that thou wert utterly bound in iniquity without ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... swallowed him up that has lost himself. Here will be no forgetfulness; yet nothing shall be thought on but that which will wound and kill; here will be no time, cause, or means for diversion; all will stick and gnaw like a viper. Now the memory will go out to where sin was heretofore committed, it will also go out to the word that did forbid it. The understanding also, and the judgment too, will now consider of the pretended necessity ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... short of blindness and stupidity," she remarked, severely. "As for me, I am going to look at the nest the viper ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... Phormio, "you write your promises in water, or better in oil, black-scaled viper. We know what time of day it is with us, ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... Soon the viper became visible. His flat head, elevated a few inches above his heavy coil, turned anxiously with the sounds in the grass. He knew what was coming, I think, but did not rattle until the king had reduced the circles ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... dog, Viper, partly fox-terrier; though not very "well bred," his manners were unexceptionable and his cleverness extraordinary. One summer afternoon Mrs. Bell was greatly surprised by Viper coming to her house much distressed and trying to tell her the ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... and found an adult black-and-white opossum with eight or nine half-grown young lying together in a nest of dry grass, and, wonderful to tell, a large venomous snake coiled up amongst them. The snake was the dreaded vivora de la cruz, as the gauchos call it, a pit-viper of the same family as the fer-de-lance, the bush-master, and the rattlesnake. It was about three feet long, very thick in proportion, and with broad head and blunt tail. It came forth hissing and striking blindly right and left when the dogs pulled the opossums out, but was killed with a blow of ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... Mr. Pump, as he again filled the glass; "we cannot be too much so. We must avoid rum and gin as we would a viper! How I abhor the very name of rum! O, Mr. Dayton, think of the misery it has brought upon man! I had a sister once, a beautiful, kind-hearted creature. She was married to an industrious man; all was fair, prospects bright. By degrees he got into ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... the united forces of the Camusot and Popinot families gained an easy victory in the world, for nobody undertook to defend the unfortunate Pons, that parasite, that curmudgeon, that skinflint, that smooth-faced humbug, on whom everybody heaped scorn; he was a viper cherished in the bosom of the family, he had not his match for spite, he was a dangerous mountebank whom nobody ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... the Viper consists of a yellowish liquid, secreted in a glandular structure (situated immediately below the skin on either side of the head), which is believed to represent the parotid gland of the higher animals. ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... chiguire.) the galinazo vulture,* (* Vultur aura, Linn., Zamuro, or Galinazo: the Brazilian vulture of Buffon. I cannot reconcile myself to the adoption of names, which designate, as belonging to a single country, animals common to a whole continent.) the crocodile, the viper, and the rattlesnake. The gaseous emanations, which are the vehicles of this aroma, seem to be evolved in proportion only as the mould, containing the spoils of an innumerable quantity of reptiles, worms, and insects, begins to be impregnated ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... excepting Dr. Cripps—did the Miss Minetts fail to put in an appearance. This of necessity, since had not they, figuratively speaking, warmed the viper in their bosoms, cradled the assassin upon their hearth? They were further handicapped, in respect of any demonstration, by the fact of Theresa Bilson's presence in their midst. Owing to the general combustion, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... nearly every time he bakes, Mixes up among the doughboys half-a-dozen poison-snakes: Where the wily free-selector walks in armour-plated pants, And defies the stings of scorpions, and the bites of bull-dog ants: Where the adder and the viper tear each other by the throat, There it was that William Johnson ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... horse done to you? What had this poor woman done to you? What, sir, had your heavenly Father done to you, that you should fill your mouth with curses against us all? Your enemy was none of us, but that viper, ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone

... fright, I have n't an idea what I have on. If this goes on, we may both as well turn scarecrows. If ever a woman was desperate, frantic, heart-broken, I am that woman. I can't begin to tell you. To have nourished a serpent, sir, all these years! to have lavished one's self upon a viper that turns and stings her own poor mother! To have toiled and prayed, to have pushed and struggled, to have eaten the bread of bitterness, and all the rest of it, sir—and at the end of all things to find myself at this pass. It can't be, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... he abounds in the rocky crevices. The notes of one, which was shown to us in a cage, sounded sweetly; but, as he was carnivorous, the weather was too hot for us to think of taking him away. We saw two snakes put into the same box: the one, a viper, presently killed the other, and much the larger of the two. Serpents, then, like men, do not, as the Satirist asserts, spare their kind. We are disappointed at not finding any coins, nor any other good souvenirs, to bring away with us. The height of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... the people in their fear are not right in dreading thee like a ghost, now that I feel, as my reward, thy burning poison streaming through my heart. Yes, thou art the fairy Esterello, and thou art unmasked at last, cruel creature! In the chill of thy refusal I have known the viper. Thou art Esterello, bitter foe to man, haunting the wild places, crowned with nettles, defending the desert against those who clear the land. Thou art Esterello, the fairy that sends a shudder through the foliage of the woods ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... did not like tobacco much, and only took a cigar as a sacrifice to the exigencies of the occasion, consuming the same with great toil and exertion of the lungs, and when he removed it from his lips, holding it at arm's length, like a viper or other venomous beast. ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... smoke out of a chimney") to dote, speak, and do that which becomes them not, their persons, callings, wisdoms. One by reason of those ascending vapours and gripings, rumbling beneath, will not be persuaded but that he hath a serpent in his guts, a viper, another frogs. Trallianus relates a story of a woman, that imagined she had swallowed an eel, or a serpent, and Felix Platerus, observat. lib. 1. hath a most memorable example of a countryman of his, that by chance, falling ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... you speak to me like this?" cried the Prince. "I have heard everything about this morning's and last night's business, and I find that I have been showing kindness to a young viper of a traitor, who is in direct communication with the enemy, and playing the spy on all my movements so ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... bring her to. This the smuggler paid no sort of regard to: and we all began to suspect some mistake: as the light increased, and we could use our glasses with effect, we found too certainly that there was. The smuggler was painted so as to resemble the Viper; and Sir Morgan had taken her for that vessel on the night before: but we now suspected (and the event proved) that she was her partner, the Rattlesnake—a ship of much greater force with a piratical crew from the South Seas, and strengthened by some of the picked ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... waist, saying, "I am not angry with you, Eudora; but while I love you, I cannot and ought not to love the bad feelings you cherish. Believe me, my dear friend, the insults of others can never make us wretched, or resentful, if all is right within our own hearts. The viper that stings us is always nourished within us. Moreover, I believe, dearest Eudora, that half your wrongs are in your own imagination. I too am a foreigner; but I have been very happy ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child

... daredevil boy down at Llanystumdwy all those years ago. I am quite sure that the peers who observed him surveying them did not think he was benignant. If I am any judge of feelings, they looked upon him, as he stood there at the bar, as a particularly malignant type of viper. With a genial smile Lloyd George exchanged a chatty word or two with an M. P. at his side. No one would have guessed that there was bitterness in his soul at this assembly or that with grim purpose he was even now marking out ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... snake. The first three segments behind the head were dilatable at the will of the insect, and had on each side a large black pupillated spot, which resembled the eye of the reptile. Moreover, it resembled a poisonous viper, not a harmless species of snake, as was proved by the imitation of keeled scales on the crown produced by the recumbent feet, as ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... but it is now much farther west, and I know fields along the Hudson overrun with it. Streams and water-courses are the natural highway of the weeds. Some years ago, and by some means or other, the viper's bugloss, or blue-weed, which is said to be a troublesome weed in Virginia, effected a lodgment near the head of the Esopus Creek, a tributary of the Hudson. From this point it has made its way down the stream, overrunning its banks and invading ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... Carefully planned, as were Froebel's own "gifts," the new apparatus presents a series of exercises in sense discrimination, satisfying no doubt while unfamiliar, but suffering from the defect of the "too finished and complex plaything," in which Froebel saw a danger "which slumbers like a viper under the roses." The danger is that "the child can begin no new thing with it, cannot produce enough variety by its means; his power of creative imagination, his power of giving outward form to his own ideas ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... come to light, and it was averred that a stag lived to an age of nine hundred years; that a dove contemplated herself with her right eye and God with her left; that the cockatrice kills animals by breathing upon them; that a viper fears to gaze upon a naked man; that the nature of the wolf is such that if the man sees him first, the wolf is deprived of force and vigor, but if the wolf first sees the man, his power of speech will vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Furthermore, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... bullock carts, and ladies go off in them with the harness bells aringing. We have "The Victoria" of the station—and faith, barring the exercise, I'd as soon not walk! Did not Mr H. kill a great Russell viper at the club steps last night, and was not bitten, and so is alive to tell the tale to-day and to-morrow, and to show the skin, three feet long with a chain pattern down the back; the beast!—it won't get out of your path; lies to be trodden on, then turns and bites you, and you're dead ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... reasons which caused the Papacy to hound Frederick to death, also determined it not to rest until it had exterminated the whole "viper's brood." Innocent IV expressed the most indecent joy at Frederick's death, and refused all offers of peace from his son and successor, Conrad IV. But being too weak to wrest Sicily from the Hohenstaufen he sought for some prince who would accept it as a papal fief. It was refused ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... confounded little minx to betray him. She was the only one who could have put his parents on his track. How should they otherwise have ever guessed it? He could have kicked himself for having once given that viper hints about his acquaintance in Puttkammerstrasse. Frida and her friendship, just let her try to talk to him again about friendship. Pooh, women on the ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... Katoma! Come out from under the bench, and lay hold of this viper of a woman, while I ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... divisions of animals] mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, crustacean, shellfish, mollusk, worm, insect, arthropod, microbe. [microscopic animals] microbe, animalcule &c. 193. [reptiles] alligator, crocodile; saurian; dinosaur [extinct]; snake, serpent, viper, eft; asp, aspick[obs3]. [amphibians] frog, toad. [fishes] trout, bass, tuna, muskelunge, sailfish, sardine, mackerel. [insects] ant, mosquito, bee, honeybee. [arthropods] tardigrade, spider. [classificatiopn by number of feet] biped, quadruped. flocks and herds, live stock; domestic animals, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Corporal Vertler Christine Lead-driver Driver Nowack Zenobia, Egon Centre-driver Driver Inoslavsky Viper, Eidechse Wheel-driver Bombardier Sickel Turk, Cavalier Gunners Count Plettau, Wolf, ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... went to his room when he didn't show up, but not finding him expected Hen had gone off to my house. And his uncle is whopping mad over it. He nearly took a fit when the expert Chief said he reckoned someone had chloroformed him. He called Hen a viper that he had fostered, and said if he could only ketch him he'd see that ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas

... find they agree with my stomach as well as theirs. I could digest a salad gathered in a churchyard as well as in a garden. I cannot start at the presence of a serpent, scorpion, lizard, or salamander: at the sight of a toad or viper I find in me no desire to take up a stone to destroy them. I feel not in myself those common antipathies that I can discover in others; those national repugnances do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... soil his fame. Ah yes, they'll try, But they'll not hurt it. For all time to come It stands there, firm as marble and as pure. They can do nothing that the sun and rain Will not erase at last. Not even Voltaire Can hurt that noble memory. Think of him As of a viper writhing at the base Of some great statue. Let the venomous tongue Flicker against that marble as it may It cannot wound it. I am far more grieved For you, who sit there wondering now, too late, If it were some suspicion, some dark hint Newton had heard that robbed him of his sleep, And ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes

... defence Have worn a casement o'er their skin, So wore he his within, Made up of virtue and transparent innocence; And though he oft renew'd the fight, And almost got priority of sight, He ne'er could overcome her quite, In pieces cut, the viper still did reunite; Till, at last, tired with loss of time and ease, Resolved to give himself, as well as ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... part of her nature, Sir, and she will and must do it, or I don't believe she'd have her health. But never mind,' said Brass, 'never mind. I've carried my point. I've shown my confidence in the lad. He has minded the office again. Ha ha! Ugh, you viper!' ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... at Pignerol in 1680, after nineteen years' incarceration; and whilst Pepys was buying his books in London, Colbert had become prime minister in France, and Colbert's brother ambassador in England. The 'viper' had caught the 'squirrel'!—B.] ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... a plant called the Gygnerium argenteum. Here the horses drank their fill greedily, as if bent on quenching their thirst for past, present and future. Thalcave went first to beat the bushes and frighten away the cholinas, a most dangerous species of viper, the bite of which kills an ox in less ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... I know you now;—viper that was warmed in my bosom! Will you look me in the face and tell me that, had it not been for you, she would not have strayed from me?" To this Phineas could make no answer. "Is it not true that when she went with me to the altar you had been ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... me before all my servants, and that is why you take his part. He would send me to hell if he had the upper hand. I've got the upper hand, and so he shall taste it instead of me, till he goes down on his marrowbones to me with my foot on his viper's tongue. —— him!" ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... Buvat," said the usher. Dubois stretched out his viper's head, darted a look at the opening which was left between the usher and the door, and, behind the official introducer, perceived a little fat man, pale, and whose legs shook under him, and who coughed to give himself assurance. A glance sufficed to inform ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... will pay you out for that speech!" said Asie, threatening the banker with a gesture worthy of the Halle, at which the Baron merely shrugged his shoulders. "Between the lip of the pot and that of the guzzler there is often a viper, and you will find me there!" she went ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... mortals must one day come, grant me to tell a simple tale and declare unto you the truth. Not to look upon the blackness of Tartarus have I come hither, nor yet to bind in chains the snaky heads on Cerberus. It is my wife I seek. A viper's sting has robbed her of the years that were her due. I should have borne my loss, indeed I tried to bear it, but I was overcome by Love, a god well known in the world above, and I think not without honor in your kingdom, unless the story of Proserpina's theft be a lying tale. I beseech ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... for that, but they took another tone. They began to hiss and to pant be hind him. A big viper came gliding. Its tongue dripping venom hung far out of its mouth, and its bright body shone against the withered leaves. Beside the snake pattered a wolf, a big, gaunt monster, who was ready to seize fast in his throat when the snake had twisted about his feet and bitten him in the heel. ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... houses. Babington and Folking were for the future to know nothing of each other. Caldigate had hoped that though the ladies would for a time be unforgiving, his uncle and his male cousins would not take up the quarrel. But aunt Polly was too strong for that; and he was declared to be a viper who had been warmed in all their bosoms and had then stung them all round. 'If you will nurse a viper in your bosom of course he will sting you,' said Aunt Polly in a letter which she took the trouble to write to the squire. In reply ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... enemy it will suddenly be seized with a spasm, ending by turning on its back, limp and apparently lifeless. When it thinks danger is past it recovers its normal position and quickly gets away. This snake is known popularly as the "Flat-headed Adder," the "Puff Adder," "Viper" and "Blow Snake." ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas

... condescension! I blush when I look at this yellow document and remember the stately courtesy of the great lock gates; for the sleepy officials of the Knigliches Zollamt little knew what an insidious little viper they were admitting into the imperial bosom at the light ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... its face with its brush, and keeping only its quick, vigilant eye fixed upon the invaders of its repose. 'Come to the fire if ye will!' said she, turning to Glaucus and his companions. 'I never welcome living thing—save the owl, the fox, the toad, and the viper—so I cannot welcome ye; but come to the fire ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... friend, and to help one who was in danger of losing the profit on half a million dollars' investment in the Sycamore Ridge waterworks, laughed as he walked upstairs in his pajamas, and said to himself, "Old Lige is a great one—there is a lot of fight in the old viper yet." It was nothing to Barclay that the town got its water from a polluted pond. That phase of the case did not enter his consciousness, though it was placarded on the bill-boards and had been printed in the Banner a thousand times during the campaign. To him it was a fight ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... trailing a moist streak after it as it crawls, and so using up its vitality, serves as a remedy for boils. The sting of a hornet is healed by the house-fly crushed and applied to the wound. The gnat, feeble creature, taking in food but never secreting it, is a specific against the poison of a viper, and this venomous reptile itself cures eruptions, while the lizard is the antidote to the scorpion.[191] Not only do all creatures serve man, and contribute to his comfort, but also God "teacheth us through the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wise through the fowls of heaven." He ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... hesitate; and she repaid him with memorable fidelity. The affectionate and dependent girl was harshly driven out. In her anguish, she took laudanum, but not with a fatal result. D'Alembert then called Du Deffand an old viper; but his friend checked him, and would never allow any abuse of her former mistress, much less herself indulge in vituperation of her. When D'Alembert was attacked by a malignant fever, she went to his bedside, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... of the righteous does not influence one of vicious origin; instruction to the worthless is a walnut on a dome, that rolls off. To smother a fire and leave its sparks, to kill a viper and take care of its young, are not actions of the wise. Though the clouds rain the water of life, you cannot eat fruit from the boughs of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... his own and his daughter's honour, and will, sir," said the other. "Look at that chest of dthrawers, it contains heaps of letthers that that viper has addressed to that innocent child. There's promises there, sir, enough to fill a bandbox with; and when I have dragged the scoundthrel before the Courts of Law, and shown up his perjury and his dishonour, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... friend, you shall not be the loser. Get up, you little viper!"—this to Williams, who was still writhing himself ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... visitor, so that vulgarity and violence were under no restraint, and whether all self-command was lost in passion, or whether there was an idea that bullying might gain the day, Mrs. Morton's voice rose into a shrill scream as she denounced the nasty, mean-spirited viper, worming herself— ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... ankle-deep under the desolate giants of the wood, and everywhere, in the hollows of the earth, lying silent and motionless, as became dead, fallen things—suddenly catching a mock fantastic life from the wind, how they would all be up and stirring, every leaf with a hiss like a viper, racing, many thousands at a time, over the barren spaces, all hurriedly talking together in their dead-leaf language! until, smitten with a mightier gust, they would rise in flight on flight, in storms and stupendous, eddying columns, whirled up to the clouds, to fall to the earth ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... desiccative property been found out of curing kibed heels, or as if in the radish we eat for food there has been found out some aperitive operation. Galen reports, that a man happened to be cured of a leprosy by drinking wine out of a vessel into which a viper had crept by chance. In this example we find the means and a very likely guide and conduct to this experience, as we also do in those that physicians pretend to have been directed to by the example ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... Queen. "The sailor's blundering loyalty will not suffer him to hold his tongue. I would lay my two lost crowns that he is down on his honest knees before my Lord craving pardon for having unwittingly fostered one of the viper brood. Then, via! off goes a post—boots and spurs are no doubt already on—and by and by comes Knollys, or Garey, or Walsingham, to bear off the perilous maiden to walk in Queen Bess's train, and have her ears boxed when her Majesty ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a cliff that shuts away the shore-line to the south. The long stretch of sands is delightful. They are dotted all over with the glaucous leaves and brilliant flowers of the yellow-horned poppy, and bristling blue viper's bugloss, and on the inland edge there is a scattered border of the rest-harrow's pink butterfly blossoms. The short turf beyond is sprinkled with the little white bladder campion and ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... thought the prettiest, was named Laura; she was a married young lady with one child. They were to depart on the morrow. At about eleven or twelve o'clock that night, Laura came to where my bed was fixed, and asked me to take her to see Tommy, this being her last opportunity. "You little viper," I was going to say, but I jumped up and led her quietly across the camp to where Tommy was fast asleep. I woke him up and said, "Here, Tommy, here's Laura come to say 'good-bye' to you, and she wants to give you a kiss." To this the uncultivated young cub replied, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... filled a bottle with the suspected liquid and made the unfortunate prisoner drink every drop of it. When he had finished, we waited for a few minutes (like the people who watched St. Paul on the Island of Melita after he had shaken off the viper into the (p. 313) fire) to see if he would swell up or die, but as nothing of that kind happened we all began to fill our water-bottles. Just as the last man was about to fill his, a big shell landed in the garden ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... attractive power for this, too curious daughter of Eve. He at once, by a blow on the head with his walking stick, despatched it, and then explained to her that it was lucky for her that it had not bitten her on the ankle. The adder or viper (Vipera Berus) is, fortunately, not common about Woodhall, but it exists there, and may be seen at times, basking on a sunny bank, or lying among the dead and dry foliage near a path, or on the open heath, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... find; The apothecary-train is wholly blind, From files a random recipe they take, And many deaths of one prescription make. Garth,[29] generous as his Muse, prescribes and gives; The shopman sells; and by destruction lives: Ungrateful tribe! who, like the viper's brood, From medicine issuing, suck their mother's blood! 110 Let these obey; and let the learn'd prescribe; That men may die, without a double bribe: Let them, but under their superiors, kill; When doctors first have sign'd the bloody bill; He 'scapes the best, who, nature ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... is a well-known fact, that this vile calumniator is the shame, the disgrace, the opprobrium, and brand of detestation; the sacrilegious and perjured outcast of society, who would cut any man's throat for one glass of the soul-destroying beverage. This accursed viper and well-known hobgoblin, labors under a complication of maladies: at one time you might see him leaving the Court-house of with the awful crime of perjury depicted in capital letters on his forehead, and indelibly engraven in the recesses of his heart, considering that every tongueless ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton

... Upon a barn of yours, hath burnt six barns, And not a strike of corn reserv'd from dust. No hand could save it, yet ten thousand hands Laboured their best, though none for love of you; For every tongue with bitter cursing bann'd Your lordship, as the viper ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... my stomach as well as theirs. I could digest a salad gathered in a churchyard as well as in a garden. I cannot start at the presence of a serpent, scorpion, lizard, or salamander; at the sight of a toad or viper, I find in me no desire to take up a stone to destroy them. I feel not in myself those common antipathies that I discover in others: those national repugnances do not touch me, {26} nor do I behold with prejudice the French, Italian, ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... is but too true. So long as you are out of Christ you are as a viper, and worse than ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... priestly Spain. Here, plainly written out Upon this paper, worth your kingdom's crown, This letter, stolen by a trusty spy, Out of the inmost chamber of the Pope Sixtus himself, here is your murder planned: Blame not your Ministers who with such haste Plucked out this viper, Mary, from your breast! Read here—how, with his thirty thousand men, The pick of Europe, Parma joins the Scots, While Ireland, grasped in their Armada's clutch, And the Isle of Wight, against our west and south Become their base." "Rome, Rome, and Rome again, And always Rome," she muttered; ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... present publication of Lee's story is to warn American men, and more particularly American women, of the Mormon viper still coiled upon the national hearth. To-day, as in the days of Lee, the Mormon missionary is abroad in the world. He is in your midst; he makes his converts among your neighbors; within the month, on one detected occasion, he stood at ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee

... than the fact that, entertaining sentiments such as are here avowed, you have visited her at all times, and under nearly all circumstances. You have abused a husband's and a brother's confidence. You have lain like a stinging viper in the bosom ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... sudden invasion of reptiles? Was Phina Island going to become the rival of ancient Tenos, whose formidable ophidians rendered it famous in antiquity, and which gave its name to the viper? ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne

... hastening to their rest; and my place will soon be empty. He goeth far, and I may not go with him. He fighteth alone, like him that strove with wild beasts at Ephesus; do Thou uphold him that he may bring a nation captive. And if a viper fasten on his hand, as chanced to Paul of old, give him grace to strike it off without hurt. O Lord, he is to me, Thy servant, as the one ewe lamb; let him be Thine when Thou gatherest for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Wurtemberg [wounded at Kunersdorf], and to all our wounded Generals: I hope Seidlitz is now out of danger: that bleeding fit (EBULLITION DE SANG) will cure him of the cramp in his jaw, and of his colics; and as he is in bed, he won't take cold. I hope the viper-broth will do you infinite good; be assiduous in patching your constitution, while there is yet some fine weather left: I dread the winter for you; take a great deal of care against cold. I have still a couple of cruel months ahead of me before ending this Campaign. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... of peace while it is so, that I see no pardon or remission granted to me? Ans. This may yield thee peace, that, following this course which hath been explained, thou art about thy duty. Thou art not at peace with sin, nor harbouring that viper in thy soul; thou art mourning and sorrowing over it, and running to Christ the prince of pardons, through his blood and intercession, conform to the covenant of redemption, and after the encouragement given in the ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... their divergence, meet in a group, but without penetrating or becoming confounded with each other. Man, therefore, by this aggregation, is at once spirit and matter, spontaneity and reflection, mechanism and life, angel and brute. He is venomous like the viper, sanguinary like the tiger, gluttonous like the hog, obscene like the ape; and devoted like the dog, generous like the horse, industrious like the bee, monogamic like the dove, sociable like the beaver and sheep. And in addition ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... amongst the stubble of the field; well, I lay a moment or two listening to the noise, and then I became frightened, for I did not like the noise at all, it sounded so odd; so I rolled myself on my belly, and looked towards the stubble. Mercy upon us! there was a huge snake, or rather a dreadful viper, for it was all yellow and gold, moving towards me, bearing its head about a foot and a half above the ground, the dry stubble crackling beneath its outrageous belly. It might be about five yards off when I first saw it, making straight towards me, child, as if it would ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow

... victim : viktimo, oferajxo. victory : venko, triumfo, sukceso. view : vidajxo; perspektivo. vigilant : vigla. vine : vinberujo. violate : malrespekti, malvirtigi. violence : perforto. violet : violo. violin : violono. viper : vipero, kolubro. virago : megero. virgin : virgulino, virga. virile : vira. virtue : virto. virus : veneno, viruso. viscid : glueca. vision : vizio, vidado. visit : viziti. vocabulary : vortaro. voice : vocxo. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... said I; 'had your will been done, I had not been made miserable by the bereavement, nor the beautiful, the innocent—the—Laura, with all her errors, dishonoured, ruined, crushed! But the betrayer, the viper that stung her, still breathes. I loved her—I love her yet—and I will be her avenger!' Saying this, I rushed away, heedless of the matron's half-uttered entreaties to remain and to desist from my ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... very men whom we protect are constantly giving information to the enemy of all our movements, and using their property whenever they can to aid and comfort the cause of treason. We are too forcibly reminded of the fable we used to read in our schoolboy days, of the Farmer and the Viper. We are only warming into new life and strength this virus of Rebellion, to have it recoil upon ourselves. We hope our authorities will soon discover their ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... (spiteful wench!) foretold, With a voice like a viper hissing. (Though I had crossed her palm with gold), That from the ranks a spirit bold Would be ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... Earthquake and Italian Sky, With its Unstriking Sun; and last, not least, The Compos Mentis Dog. Now, ingrate, try To bring a better stomach to the feast: When Nature makes a dance and pays the piper, To be unhappy is to be a viper!" ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce



Words linked to "Viper" :   ophidian, snake, viper's bugloss, common viper, asp, cerastes, Bitis arietans, sand viper, Vipera aspis, Cerastes cornutus, puff adder, horned viper, family Viperidae, Bitis gabonica, Viperidae, horned asp



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