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Burst   /bərst/   Listen
Burst

noun
1.
The act of exploding or bursting.  Synonym: explosion.  "The burst of an atom bomb creates enormous radiation aloft"
2.
Rapid simultaneous discharge of firearms.  Synonyms: fusillade, salvo, volley.
3.
A sudden flurry of activity (often for no obvious reason).  Synonym: fit.  "A fit of housecleaning"
4.
A sudden intense happening.  Synonyms: flare-up, outburst.  "A burst of lightning"



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"Burst" Quotes from Famous Books



... Berkeley did not—much, and perhaps too much, about himself; and much, though perhaps not too much, about poor old Galen, and his substitution of an ape's inside for that of a human being. The storm which had been long gathering burst upon him. The old school, trembling for their time-honoured reign, bespattered, with all that pedantry, ignorance, and envy could suggest, the man who dared not only to revolutionise surgery, but to interfere with the privileged mysteries of medicine; and, over and above, to become ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... workers could avail nothing against the decision rendered at the Delphi of Science. But no ban, scientific or canonical, can longer resist the germinative power of a fact, and so now, after three decades of suppression, the truth which Cuvier had buried beneath the weight of his ridicule burst its bonds, and fossil man stood revealed, if not as a flesh-and-blood, at ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... at least," cried one of the troopers, with a burst of laughter. Then came the sergeant's voice, cold and formal, "In the King's name, Monsieur de Lesperon, I ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... the "dark ages." The kings of the earth, gave their power to the "beast," and submitted to be trodden on by the miserable vermin that often filled the papal chair, as in the case of Henry, emperor of Germany. The storm of papal persecution first burst upon ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... framework and foil. All sounds are her servants, and purveyors, proclaiming not only that their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought after. They are so far akin to Silence, that they are but bubbles on her surface, which straightway burst, an evidence of the strength and prolificness of the under-current; a faint utterance of Silence, and then only agreeable to our auditory nerves when they contrast themselves with and relieve the former. In proportion as they do this, and are heighteners and intensifiers of the ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... the heart, echoing out of the ages, set to rich music—it was that solemn A minor chant by Battishill, which you know—should be able to calm and uplift the grieving spirit. The thought rises into a burst of gladness at the end; and then follows hard upon it the tenderest of all Psalms, The Lord is my Shepherd, in which the spirit casts its care upon God, and walks simply, in utter trust and confidence. The dreariness of my ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... chess problem from E. B. C., upon the 'barked' side of a spruce, we hurried down to the 'Mount Marcy stream,' over the Bartlett Mountain, on to the Upper Pond. The thunder rumbled all around us, and we had several light showers. Just as we reached the lake, the storm burst in all its fury. By the aid of our shawls and umbrellas we managed to keep dry until a lull came and we could row to the bark shanties, where we purposed passing the night. It was only half past three, and we might have returned to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... The mighty dome sprang far aloft, as if it enclosed a part of heaven, for the light that struggled through the windows around its base, lay in broad bars on the blue, hazy air. I would not have been surprised at seeing a cloud float along within it. The lofty burst of the organ, that seemed like the pantings of a monster, boomed echoing away through dome and nave, with a chiming, metallic vibration, that shook the massive pillars which it would defy an earthquake to rend. All was wrapped in dusky obscurity, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... has gathered itself into a single ball (which I don't for a moment believe it ever will, but I don't care) it will no sooner have done so, than the bubble will burst and it will go back ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... pope's legate, the kings of France and England, assumed an independent command: seventeen tribunals exercised the power of life and death; every criminal was protected in the adjacent quarter; and the perpetual jealousy of the nations often burst forth in acts of violence and blood. Some adventurers, who disgraced the ensign of the cross, compensated their want of pay by the plunder of the Mahometan villages: nineteen Syrian merchants, who traded under the public faith, were despoiled and hanged by the Christians; and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... puissance, and of unfading glory, who created this boundless universe with its mobile and immobile creatures (is a Brahman). Some persons there are, destitute of wisdom, who say that Brahman was born of an Egg. From the original Egg, when it burst forth, mountains and the points of the compass and the waters and the earth and the heavens all sprang forth into existence. This birth of the creation was not seen by any one. How then can Brahman be said to have taken his birth from the original Egg, when ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Suddenly something burst into the room—the terrible something that she had been waiting for. The silence broke into a thousand screaming voices. She slipped to the floor and cried out in an ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung

... This little burst of grotesque sentimentalism is one of the pieces that justify the description of Diderot as the most German of all the French.[174] Equally characteristic and more sensible is the writer's outbreak against ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... a few paces and looked up at the house; then glanced round him at the garden and the distant view. After this he burst out laughing. "I see it must seem to you very strange," he said. There was, after all, something substantial in his laughter. Gertrude looked at him from head to foot. Yes, he was remarkably handsome; but his smile was almost a grimace. "It is very still," he went on, coming nearer again. And ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... any more, monsieur," she said, seeing that Barebone was wise enough to keep silence. "I do not know who you are, mon ami," she went on, in a little burst of confidence; "and, as I told you just now, I do not care. And, as to that other matter, there is no ill-will. I only permit myself to wonder, sometimes, if she is pretty. That is feminine, I suppose. One can be ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... true! And pretty results have come of this infection of decency!" Durtal burst out laughing as he thought of the cathedral ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... many of his earlier essays. Artemus inquired for Mr. Gray, the editor, who chanced to be absent. Looking round at the vacant desks and inkstained furniture, Artemus was silent for a minute or two, and then burst into one of those peculiar chuckling fits of laughter in which he would occasionally indulge; not a loud laugh, but a shaking of the whole body with an impulse of merriment which set every muscle in motion. "Here," said he, "here's where ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... 'and should a general strike or revolution occur it would be the outcome of too great pressure being brought to bear upon the men who, in a state of unrest and industrial uncertainty, have reached a highly inflammable condition that might burst out spontaneously.'" ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... with grief at these words. He rose to reply, but his feelings deprived him of utterance. Relieved by a burst of tears, whilst a deep silence pervaded the house, he at ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... genial harmless nonsense, to which the most captious and morose of readers will find it difficult to refuse the tribute of a broad smile, even if he can so far restrain himself as not to burst ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... King Lot, with a hundred knights, burst out through a rear door, and thought to escape; but King Arthur with his knights waylaid them, and slew on the right and on the left, doing such deeds that all took pride in his bravery and might of arms. Fiercely did King Lot press forward, and to his aid came Sir Caradoc, ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... leaping beast—a road-devouring minotaur—the car with Van shot roaringly through space. He could not tell that Searle, ahead, was slipping yet further in the lead. He only knew that, come what might, till the mechanism burst, or the earth should split, he would chase his man across the desert. The dust in the air from Bostwick's car drove blindingly upon him. Far, far away, a mere speck on the road, he beheld a freight-team approaching—a ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... burst into tears as she held the child to her heart; then taking Rochford's hand, she pressed it to her lips. The nurse, seeing the child was saved, quickly recovered, and exhibited her gratitude in even a more demonstrative way than her ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston

... behalf of the innocent man whom his fellow-members were determined to destroy. It was a testing-time for Nicodemus, and sore was the struggle between timidity and a sense of duty. The storm in the court-room was ready to burst; the council was about taking violent measures against Jesus. We know not what would have happened if no voice had been lifted for fair trial before condemnation. But then Nicodemus arose, and in the midst of ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... raven, and to Hugh's surprise each peacock lifted up a claw, and taking hold of a bell-rope, of which there were two, one on each side of the door, pulled them vigorously. No sound ensued, but at the instant there burst forth the same soft yet brilliant light which had so delighted Hugh when he first awoke, and which he now discovered to come not from the moon, still shining in gently at the window of the tapestry room down below, but from those ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth

... without observing restrictions even on sacred days, give themselves up to dancing. One of those wicked Vahikas,—one that is, that lived amongst those arrogant women,—who happened to live for some days in Kurujangala, burst out with cheerless heart, saying, "Alas, that (Vahika) maiden of large proportions, dressed in thin blankets, is thinking of me,—her Vahika lover—that is now passing his days in Kurujangala, at the hour of her going to bed." Crossing the Sutlej and the delightful Iravati, and arriving ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... spite of her resentment, was touched with pity and with fear; so that, presently, she burst out, impulsively: "Then you are ruined, Sophie! ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... stand, They burst through the chancel's gloom, From St. Edmond's shrine, lo! a skeleton's hand, 95 Points ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... example, and finding no bones dislocated, my spirits rose again. We looked at each other, when there appeared something so ludicrously forlorn in the expression of our countenances, that we both burst out into fits of laughter. We indulged in our mirth for some time, and then got up and commenced our walk back into the town. Fortunately we had not got any very great distance from the walls, so the ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... concierge I hurried back to the pavilion. The door, in spite of the furious attempts of Monsieur Stangerson and Bernier to burst it open, was still holding firm; but at length, it gave way before our united efforts,—and then what a sight met our eyes! I should tell you that, behind us, the concierge held the laboratory lamp—a powerful lamp, that lit ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux

... Ramiro burst into a laugh. So convinced was he of the impossibility of my having got the letter to the Duke, even if what I had said of its abstraction were true, that he gathered assurance from what seemed to him so monstrous ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... drink all the water in the lake, so as to reach the turtle: they burst themselves and perish. Or (F1) they get a fish to drain the pond dry; fish is punctured by a bird, water rushes out, and monkeys are drowned. Or (F2) monkeys summon all the other animals to help them drink the lake dry. The animals put leaves ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... cried. "For God's sake—the posse—" but before he could finish, a troop of men, armed with six-shooters and Winchester rifles, burst from the cover of bushes that lined ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... Islam might appeal to experience and challenge those who trusted in special deities to justify their worship in face of the facts. The most decisive facts against idolaters, however, were not yet patent, but were destined to burst upon mankind at the last day—and most unpleasantly for the majority. Where Mohammed speaks in the name of the universal natural power he is abundantly scornful toward that fond paganism which consists in imagining distinct patrons for various regions of nature or for sundry ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... you ain't, stranger," cried the teamster, in a burst of generous enthusiasm. "If you ain't a Yankee, there ain't one ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... out of a pale face, with eyes that seemed fascinated. That short burst of the fiery eloquence that had made him famous revealed him to her in a new light: the light of a strength and capacity above and beyond that which, already, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... word about the Houyhnhnms, and he demands for the Journal to Stella recognition as "the first great novel, being at the same time a marvellous and absolutely genuine autobiography." His ultimate burst of appreciation is a beautifully characteristic example of what has before been called Saintsburyese—not because of any obscurity in it, but because of its oddity of ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... to her feet, her cheeks flaming, confused, half-frightened, though a fierce exultation surged within her. She had half expected this, half dreaded it, and now that it had burst upon her in such volcanic fashion she realized that she had not been entirely prepared. She sought refuge in banter, facing him, her ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... burst out. "If you had only been—" He broke off, resolutely compressing his lips. His jaw was set again in the strong old way that she ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... fair, blue, smiling heavens; no voice of nature warned poor little Daisy, as she stood at the open window drinking in the pure, sweet beauty of the morning of the dark clouds which were gathering over her innocent head, and of the storm which was so soon to burst upon her in all its fury. Daisy turned away from the window with a little sigh. She did not see a handsome, stalwart figure hurrying down the hill-side toward the cottage. How her heart would have throbbed if she had only known Rex (for it was he) was so near her! With a strangely beating heart he ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... they had shown upon the rifle ranges at Paris Island, Mare Island, and Quantico. Incessantly their rifles cracked, and with their fire came the support of the artillery. The machine-gun fire, incessant also, began to make its inroads upon the advancing forces. Closer and closer the shrapnel burst to its targets. Caught in a seething wave of machine-gun fire, of scattering shrapnel, of accurate rifle fire, the Germans found themselves in a position in which further advance could only mean absolute suicide. The lines hesitated. They stopped. They broke for cover, while the marines raked ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... Mr Bryan's house, and tell his adventure. As he drew near, the dogs raised a loud barking, the master came out, bade him welcome, and carried him into the house. Mr. Bryan had scarcely introduced him to his family as "the son of his neighbor Boone," when suddenly the door of the room was burst open, and in rushed a little lad of seven, followed by a girl of sixteen years, crying out, "O father! father! sister is frightened to death! She went down to the river, and was chased by a panther!" The hunter and his game had met. There stood Boone, ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip

... continue to address me in your present heartless style for one minute longer, I shall burst into tears," says Mr. Massereene. And ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... of the bath or the heart of a lover whom love-longing hath wasted. Quoth Ali in himself, "Verily, our King hath a coynte; this is indeed a wonder of wonders!" And lust get hold on him and his yard rose and stood upright to the utmost of its height; which when Zumurrud saw, she burst out laughing and said to him, "O my lord, all this happeneth and yet thou knowest me not!" He asked "And who art thou, O King?"; and she answered, "I am thy slave- girl Zumurrud." Now whenas he knew this and was certified that she ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... voices as sweet as organ tones; and ducks quacked, whistled and whirred overhead, a true rain of birds beating up against the wind. Over every slew, on all sides, thousands of ducks of many kinds, and several sorts of geese hovered, settled, or burst up in eruptions of birds, their back-feathers shining like bronze as they turned so as to reflect the sunlight to my eyes; while so far up that they looked like specks, away above the wind it seemed, so quietly did they circle ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... party advanced the forest grew denser, the trees closer together. At last, when they began to fear that further progress would be impossible, they burst suddenly into a stretch of open country extending as far as ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... can't bear to think of what he said!" she burst out. "I feel as though I should go wild sometimes when I remember, when I know that I have a gift which is given to few, and that it is wasted on me, locked away, unless—for do you know what Signor Vanucini said to me?" she asked, coming to an abrupt pause ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler

... September, Sergeant Alfred Ablet, of the Grenadier Guards, seeing a burning shell fall in the centre of a number of ammunition cases and powder, instantly seized it, and threw it outside the trench. It burst as it touched the ground. Had it exploded before, the loss of life would have ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... lad's inclination but also with his actual progress, came to tell Madame Bridau of her son's faculty. Agathe, like a true provincial, who knows as little of art as she knows much of housekeeping, was terrified. When Lemire left her, she burst into tears. ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... grapes, and let them boil with a pint of water till the skins burst, mash and strain them, put a pound of sugar to a pint of juice, and let it boil half and hour. Ripe fox-grapes may be made into very nice jelly in the same way, and is very good to drink ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea

... one moment! Respectable military Federates have barely got home to their quarters; and the inflammablest, 'dying, burnt up with liquors, and kindness,' has not yet got extinct; the shine is hardly out of men's eyes, and still blazes filling all men's memories,—when your discords burst forth again very considerably darker than ever. Let us look at Bouille, and ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... gravity was also entirely upset, and he burst out laughing. So did Mr. Foker, who said, "By Jove, it was a good 'un." So did the attorney, although by ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... as he proceeded in his work, he discovered that, after its terms were known and the public had had time for reflection, the Union was thankfully accepted by the two communities which made up Ireland; that the Protestants, after the first burst of clamour, were as a body converted and became well-wishers to the measure; and that the Roman Catholics, after a short hesitation, gave the Union their hearty assent and support. And finally, the whole inquiry left a strong ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... the Chicago Convention the whole course of events steadily strengthened the canvass for Mr. Lincoln. The turn of the political tide came with sudden and overpowering force. The news of the capture of Fort Morgan burst upon the Democratic Convention while it was declaring the war a failure, and the day after its adjournment brought the still more inspiring intelligence that Sherman had taken Atalanta. The swift successes of Farragut ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... means the principal one. It is not necessarily a sacrifice, but if necessary the sacrifice must be made. The world envies the lot of those who sit upon thrones. But the seat is not without its thorns. It seems all summer with them. But upon whom burst more storms, or charged with redder fury? They seem to the unreflecting mind to be the only independent—while they are the slaves of all. The prosperous citizen may link himself and his children when and with whom ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... prison-wall that barred his senses on one great side of life, suddenly fell, of its own accord, without so much as his knowing when it happened. Amid the fumes of coarse tobacco and poor beer, surrounded by the commonest of German Haus-frauen, a new sense burst out like a flower in his life, so superior to the old senses, so bewildering, so astonished at its own existence, that he could not credit it, and watched it as something apart, accidental, and not to be trusted. He slowly came to admit that Beethoven had partly become intelligible to him, but he ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... the house that afternoon, she was unconscious. Once, at a stab of pain, she burst out crying with fretful wildness; and once she put ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... When Keith told him that Miriam was on the verge of a nervous breakdown simply because of certain trouble into which Shan Tung had inveigled her brother, and that everything would be straightened out the moment Shan Tung returned from Winnipeg, the iron man seized his hands in a sudden burst of relief ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood

... flower and watched it and waited to see what she should see; and while she was watching and waiting, the flower burst into bloom. The loveliest bloom! Every blossom was as rosy as the little clouds at sunrise; and the wee woman's garden was more beautiful than before because ...
— The Story-teller • Maud Lindsay

... amelioration of the extensive kingdom which he had subdued, and the advancement of his own rank and fortune, Valdivia had no suspicion of an extensive and determined system of warfare which was planning among the Araucanians, and which soon burst forth with irresistible violence, to the ultimate destruction of all the Spanish conquests beyond the Biobio, and to which Valdivia himself fell an early victim. Colocolo, an aged Ulmen of the province ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... interest of my own eternal repose while I plead thus.' She hears him with a hundred changes of countenance. Love, rage, and jealousy swell in her fierce eyes, her breath beats short, and she was ready to burst into speaking before he had finished what he had to say; she called up all the little discretion and reason love had left her to manage herself as she ought in this great occasion; she bit her lips, and swallowed ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... their work. Or, if not done altogether by them, the work had been done by the latitude which had admitted them. So that the young wife, when she found herself breathing the free air with which her husband surrounded her, was able to burst asunder the remnants of those cords of fanaticism with which her mother had endeavoured to constrain her. She looked abroad, and soon taught herself to feel that the world was bright and merry, that this mortal life was by no means necessarily ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... wit, bake, climb, freight, help, lift, load, shape, writhe. By Murray, two: load and shape. With Crombie, and in general with the others too, twenty-seven verbs are always irregular, which I think are sometimes regular, and therefore redundant: abide, beseech, blow, burst, creep, freeze, grind, lade, lay, pay, rive, seethe, shake, show, sleep, slide, speed, string, strive, strow, sweat, thrive, throw, weave, weep, wind, wring. Again, there are, I think, more than twenty redundant ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... read; what low expectations they had of the Messiah when most they longed for his coming. They did not hear the prophet while he read the prophet! At sight of a few poor little wonders, nothing to him, to them sufficient to prove him such a Messiah as they looked for, they would burst into loud acclaim, and rush to their arms, eager, his officers and soldiers, to open the one triumphant campaign against the accursed Romans, and sweep them beyond the borders of their sacred country. Their Messiah would make of their nation the redeemed of the Lord, ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald

... dull days enough in the year for you to write and read in, that you should waste this glittering season when Florida and Cuba seem to have left their glittering seats and come to visit us with all their shining hours, and almost we expect to see the jasmine and cactus burst from the ground instead of these last gentians and asters which have loitered to attend this latter glory of the year? All insects are out, all birds come forth, the very cattle that lie on the ground seem to have great thoughts, and Egypt and ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... along heedless of the dangers which surrounded them—disregardful of the advantages offered to their cunning foes by the rocks and thickly wooded eminences around them. Suddenly the shrill war-whoop burst from the rocks at their feet, and many armed Indians sprang up before them. An arrow pierced the breast of the aged priest, and he fell dead in front of his band. Two Indians met their death at the hands of their foes, the remainder sought the forest. Several of the Yengeese ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... his feet, notwithstanding at the time he was put in it appeared impossible for him to move either his legs or arms, and shaking off his covering, as quick as if the bands with which it had been bound were burst asunder,' he prophesied. The Great Spirit did not say when the traders would arrive, but, just after high noon, next day, a canoe would arrive, and the people in it would tell when the traders ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... nothing more was heard of the little boy's woes. He plodded along silently, till just as they were approaching 'Uncle Marmy's gate' as they called it, he burst out again. ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... after this, and, overcome with fatigue, I dropped off to sleep. When I awoke the light was shining in through the door of the hut. I looked at Dick's countenance; it was calm and pleasant. I took his hand—it dropped by his side. Then I knew that my poor friend was dead; and I burst ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston

... shed no blood at all: Did not offend, nor were not worthy Blame, If this foule deed were by, to equall it. He was a Man; this (in respect) a Childe, And Men, ne're spend their fury on a Childe. What's worse then Murtherer, that I may name it? No, no, my heart will burst, and if I speake, And I will speake, that so my heart may burst. Butchers and Villaines, bloudy Caniballes, How sweet a Plant haue you vntimely cropt: You haue no children (Butchers) if you had, The thought of them would haue stirr'd vp remorse, But if you euer chance to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... people so frequently met there and sang and conversed; and I have little doubt this spring is of like social importance. There is a famous spring at San Antonio, Texas, which is described by that excellent traveler, Frederick Law Olmsted. "The whole river," he says, "gushes up in one sparkling burst from the earth, with all the accessories of smaller springs,—moss, pebbles, foliage, seclusion, etc. Its effect is overpowering. It is beyond your possible conception of ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... forth in them somewhat supernatural".(5) So Athenaeus(6) reports of a visitor to the shrine of Leto in Delos, that he expected the ancient statue of the mother of Apollo to be something remarkable, but, unlike the pious Porphyry, burst out laughing when he found it a shapeless wooden idol. These idols were dressed out, fed and adorned as if they had life.(7) It is natural that myths dating from an age when Greek gods resembled Polynesian idols should be as rude as Polynesian myths. The tenacity ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... then burst into laughter at the curious introduction his Cousin had given to this subject. "I have long perceived your talent for embellishment, but certainly was not prepared for the conclusion; but you ought rather to have denominated them ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... breathed his last. They sealed up neither his room nor his effects, because, in the first place, there were no heirs, and, in the second, there was very little to inherit beyond a bundle of goose-quills, a quire of white official paper, three pairs of socks, two or three buttons which had burst off his trousers, and the mantle already known to the reader. To whom all this fell, God knows. I confess that the person who told me this tale took no interest in the matter. They carried Akaky Akakiyevich ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... "I should not have detained you." But as I was about to take her at her word she burst into a passion of tears. At the same instant she leaped towards me, and seizing me with both hands, drew me back again to the middle ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... Reed glared at him, and shaking his big stick, exclaimed, "I'd give you sugar with this if you were my boy!" and so terrible did he look in his anger at the luxury of the times, that the little boy burst out ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... reversed, And the slow beating of the muffled drum, And funeral marches, bring our hero home These stormy woods where his young heart was nursed Ring with a trumpet burst Of jubilant music, as if he who lies With shrouded face, and lips all white and dumb Were a crowned conqueror entering paradise,— This ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean

... and then suddenly burst into wild laughter, and hid his head in his arms. Such was their mood that she could not feel sure whether he was laughing ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... Particularly did she wish to recall what she had done when she saw that Fanny also had received some of the preserves on her merino; but instead of raging like a fury, she arose and quietly wiped it off, and then burst into a loud laugh, which she afterward told her mother was occasioned by the mournful look which Mr. Wilmot's face assumed when he saw that Julia's temper was not dead, but merely ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... defenses, and the water rushed in torrents along the deck and crept cold as ice up their bodies as they sat huddled, or lay sick and despairing on the hard and tossing wood; and whenever a heavier sea than usual struck the ship a despairing scream burst from the women, and the good ship groaned and shivered and seemed to share their fears, and the blast yelled into their souls, "I am mighty as fate—as fate. And pitiless! ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... tens of thousands, we march'd through day and night, The Lily standard in our front, like Israel's holy light. Around us rush'd the rebels, as the wolf upon the sheep, We burst upon their columns, as the lion roused from sleep; We tore the bayonets from their hands, we slew them at their guns, Their boasted horsemen flew like chaff before our forest-sons; That eve we heap'd their baggage high their lines of dead between, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... that it was impossible to get many out and we had an unusual supply just cut. One day in May, there was a regular cloudburst. We had been late in getting out the logs as the season was late. The Snake River over-ran its banks and the lake filled so full that the boom burst and away went all those logs with a mighty grinding, headed straight ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... May, trying to smile; "but it's just because I'm not burned, nor scared, nor horrible to look at, that I want Mr. Curzon. I want—I want——" And then May's high courage gave way, and she burst into tears. ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford

... a burst of laughter. "Why, the clasp King Charles sent you, for sure. Have you got so many diamond clasps you can't tell ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt

... about to be going by the board. We scrambled up, and I heard Jack's voice calling for me to come out. The cover-bows were bent far over, and the canvas pressed in on the side to the southwest till it seemed as if it must burst. The front end of the top had gone out and was cracking in the wind. I crept forward, and us I did so I felt the wagon rise up on the windward side and bump back on the ground. I concluded we were doomed to u wreck, and called to Ollie to ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth

... stroke, as many of them did—no, he was like a rock. Well, the Slip, as I said, stood over him, fixing himself for the stroke, and coming down with such a pelt on poor Jemmy's hand, that the first thing we saw was the blood acrass the Slip's own legs and feet, that had burst out of poor Jemmy's finger-ends. The Slip then stooped to receive the next blow himself, and you may be sure there was above two dozen up to be at him. No matter; one man they all gave way to, and that ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... sheet. Nothing else. "Good God!" I said, "is he dead?" "He is as dead, sir," rejoined the gentleman, "as a door-nail. But we must all die, Mr. Dickens, sooner or later, my dear sir." "Ah!" I said. "Yes, to be sure. Very true. But what did he die of?" The gentleman burst into a flood of tears, and said, in a voice broken by emotion: "He christened his youngest child, sir, with a toasting-fork." I never in my life was so affected as at his having fallen a victim to this complaint. It carried a conviction to my mind that he never could have ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens

... suppressed in his own tribe, but he could not sympathize with the general principle, and he asked "What will the slave-traders do?" Colonel Abd-el-Kader replied to the question by explaining to him my exact position, and the relative position of the traders. At this he burst out laughing in the rudest manner. He had seen me and my wife on our former voyage, and he well remembered that in those days we had been not only helpless in Gondokoro, but that the traders had spoken of all Europeans with contempt. He had ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... nonsensical and fruitless end, either: it can never be fruitless or nonsensical to get face to face with Nature in any of her moods. The ice-locked streams, the driven snow, the sleep of vegetation, a burst of sunshine over the snow, the sough of the winter wind, Earth waiting to feel the breath of spring on her face to waken up in youth and beauty again, like the sleeping princess at the touch of the young prince,—all these are things richly to be enjoyed, especially by strong, healthy people: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... He sings the praises of the duke of Portland, the earl of Darlington, and the duke of Northumberland. An incautious announcement of the death of the duke of Grafton, remembered chiefly as one of the victims of Junius, but known to Young for his careful experiments in sheep-breeding, produced a burst of tears, which, as he believed, cost him his eyesight. His friend, the fifth duke of Bedford (died 1802), was one of the greatest improvers for the South, and was succeeded by another friend, the famous Coke of Holkham, afterwards earl of Leicester, who is said to have ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... every moment to share the fate which had already overtaken so many of their companions in misery, the poop was discovered to give way; another wave rolled on with impetuous fury, and the hinder part of the luckless vessel, with all who sought safety in its frail support, was burst away from its shattered counterpart, and about forty wretched beings hurried through the foaming flood into ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... the crowded benches on our deck a strange and marvelous babble of sound. Some burst into tears of thankfulness and relief, some howled like wild beasts because of their chains, some cursed and blasphemed because there was small chance of the English ship's folk knowing our condition. Others shouted and yelled for help; the men sitting next the port-holes thrust forth their heads ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher

... it did not abate my thirst for knowledge, developed my constructive powers. I became a mechanician and an inventor. Perpetual motion was my first hobby. Six times during the course of boyhood did I burst into my mother's presence with the astounding news that I had "discovered it at last!" The mild and trustful being believed me. Six times also was I compelled to acknowledge to her that I had been mistaken, and again she believed me, more thoroughly, ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... body of sin." It was rather doubtful whether they would do so, he reflected, as he felt them squirming in his arms while Mrs. Spaniel was busy trying to keep their socks on. When the curate exhorted him "to follow the innocency" of these little ones, it was disconcerting to have one of them burst into a piercing yammer, and wriggle so forcibly that it slipped quite out of its little embroidered shift and flannel band. But the actual access to the holy basin was more seemly, perhaps due to the children imagining ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... loud crash as the first salvo burst from the Germans, but the Sylph was untouched. Still the British ship drew nearer without firing. Then Lord Hastings gave the command: "Mr. Hetherington, you ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... turned angrily, and uttered, in a scathing tone, the one word, "Widow!" then she burst out: "Curse you! How dare you come between me and the glorious sun! Your shadow has fallen upon me, and I'll have to take the bath of purification before I can eat food! ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... are past," she exclaimed, "James, your sufferings are over!" As she uttered the words, the curate was astonished by hearing her burst out into one or two wild hysteric laughs, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... while Lady Kingscourt and her friends thought he was referring to a revolution in China or Portugal or the establishment of some kind of representative government in Thibet. Thus every one was pleased and Gorman climbed down from the platform amid a burst ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham

... or left, perhaps hitting poor little Tegeloo on the nose. Mr. Donelson assumed an airy indifference and a careless toss, and lo! the contrary thing went whirling between his feet, aft. Lady Moreham actually burst into laughter as, after careful aim in a judicial manner Mrs. Poinsett set hers spinning—and knocked Captain Hosmer's cap off, while all were convulsed as she, herself, after slow and accurate aiming, sent the ring square against poor Texas, chained to his perch, knocking him down and causing ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... believe in the Pope. One aged person remembered how a rude multitude had been swayed when John Wesley preached in the cattle-market; but for a long while it had not been expected of preachers that they should shake the souls of men. An occasional burst of fervor in Dissenting pulpits on the subject of infant baptism was the only symptom of a zeal unsuited to sober times when men had done with change. Protestantism sat at ease, unmindful of schisms, careless of proselytism; Dissent was an inheritance along with a superior pew and a business ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... flood in which it washed the masonry, as on the pavement of the Square or the straw of the market-place; and even on our first Sundays, when we came down before Easter, it would console me for the blackness and bareness of the earth outside by making burst into blossom, as in some springtime in old history among the heirs of Saint Louis, this dazzling and gilded carpet of forget-me-nots ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... begins toward the end of the eighth century before our era. It is a bright burst; for then, down by yonder green-foaming rock, the young Greek mariners leaped on the strand. This was their first land-fall in Sicily; that rock, their Plymouth; and here, doubtless, the alarmed mountaineers stood in their ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... proposing its riddle of true democracy. Presidents and parties, conventions, caucuses, and candidates, failing to guess it, are remorselessly consumed. Forty years ago that conscience asked, "Do men have fair play in this country?" A burst of contemptuous laughter was the reply. Louder and louder grew that question, until it was one great thunderburst, absorbing all other questions; and then the country saw that its very life was bound up in the answer; and, springing to its feet, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... followed by the three burgomasters of Stockholm and thirteen members of the town council, with fifteen of the leading citizens, some of them having been dragged from their houses, without the least warning, and led to execution. One citizen, Lars Hausson by name, burst into tears as he beheld this terrible scene, and at once was seized by the soldiers, dragged within the fearful circle, and made to pay by death for ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... swarm spores of many algae, as Stigeoclonium (figured in Sachs' "Botany"). Here the contents of the cell contract, rearrange themselves, and burst the side of the containing wall, becoming ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... hundred thousands, none reach a million. But from the point of view of human interest and political intrigue it is by far the most picturesque. Here the hatred between the combatants is most bitter; indeed so bitter that when it burst into flame a mad whirlwind of passion swept over half the world. For here ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... awoke to unaccustomed merriment. Lancaster warmed to the storekeeper's genial attentions, and burst into frequent guffaws; Dallas and Marylyn followed his every word, breaking in, from time to time, with ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... hind legs, and began to bleat, marching along with so much dainty gravity, that the entire circle of spectators burst into a laugh at this parody of the interested devoutness of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... speculation. There was something in her face, and manner, and voice, he had never before seen or heard, and madame—who watched every expression of her husband—was easily led to the same observation. She observed Cornelia closely, and her gay laugh especially revealed some change. It was like the burst of bird song in early spring, and she followed the happy girl to the front door, and called her back when she had gone down the steps, and said, as she looked earnestly ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... "Begone!" The word burst from the lips of Antipater in a hoarse growl, and, like a tiger's paw, his hand struck the cushions in front of him. As he lay blinking drowsily, his chin upon his hands, there was still in his face and attitude a ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller

... better come now. If she becomes conscious and has life enough to expect anything, she will expect you to burst forth into praises of him. You had better at least commit to memory the colour of his eyes and hair. I believe he has two hairs. He is a huge, fat, overgrown thing with enormous cheeks. When ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... by there was a burst of shouts and cheers outside and the prince with his train entered in fine dramatic style. He was a stately man, he was ideally costumed, and fairly festooned with ropes of gems; some of the ropes were of pearls, some were of uncut great emeralds—emeralds renowned in Bombay for their ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Sahara. At my feet lay crouched a fierce lion of the tropics. Suddenly his wild eyes opened and fell upon me. With a conclusive bound he sprang to his feet, and laid bare his horrible teeth. In another instant there burst from his red throat a roar like the thunder of the firmament, and I fell impetuously to the earth. Stifling in a paroxysm of terror, I at last found myself partially awake. My dream, then, was not all a dream. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... genius there now seemed to be only one gentleman who was not a-tremble. It was the little scientist Doctor Chord. He looked at me with a bright and twinkling eye; suddenly he grinned broadly. I could not but burst into laughter when I noted the appetite with which he enjoyed the confusion and alarm of ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... party of our men were concealed. With keen interest we watched the scene, waiting to see the enemy caught in the trap. Then a volley burst from the brush. Like a flash the horsemen wheeled and raced back into Ladysmith. The volley had been ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar

... at my shoulder we pushed slowly forward, a nightingale burst close against my ear into so passionate a descant I thought I should be gooseflesh to the end of ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare

... trumpets, passed the bluecoats to the Capitol. There a small regimental flag was being hoisted. Suddenly a hush fell upon the waiting victors. The figure of Captain Driver appeared high against the dome of the Statehouse. The strains of "The Star-Spangled Banner" burst upon the ear; and amid cheers and cries of "Old Glory! Old Glory!" that echoed to the distant hills the old sea flag unfurled and floated above the topmost pinnacle of the Capitol of Tennessee. And thus Old Glory ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott

... horses to it. "That's quite right," thought Pfriem, "but two horses won't get that cart out, it must at least have four to it." Another angel came and brought two more horses; she did not, however, harness them in front of it, but behind. That was too much for Master Pfriem, "Clumsy creature," he burst out with, "what are you doing there? Has any one ever since the world began seen a cart drawn in that way? But you, in your conceited arrogance, think that you know everything best." He was going to ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... waiting at the gate. "I am of Ispahaun," replied Ins al Wujjood, "and was shipwrecked in a trading voyage upon this coast, to the shore of which I alone of all my companions had the good fortune to escape." Upon hearing this the man burst into tears, embraced him, and said, "May God preserve thee from future calamities! I am also a native of Ispahaun, where also dwelt my cousin, whom I dearly loved, and by whom I was beloved. At ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... perceiving at last that he was treating her like the silliest of small girls, lost her patience, and burst into tears. ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... phylactery, with a saint's relic within. This brought him to the notice of a gentle-souled Portuguese of the crew, a true believer, who made friends with the Scot and earned his confidence before he learned of the shamness of the phylactery. Scotty, on lookout one night, told him this in a burst of confidence that also included a confession of his peculation. His friend, horrified, not at the theft, but at the sacrilegious fraud, informed him that the coin was accursed, that his soul was accursed, and that the only salvation for him in this life and the next was, first, ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... burst through the bushes and waved madly to a taxi rolling slowly along the macadam below the hill. The ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe

... moment it was that she saw consciousness burst into the unconscious; burst with the strong ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... serf, and fear ensured his silence, but he told his wife, the drunken widow who is now chattering about it. Of course it is nonsense, incredible nonsense. I am the first to cry that it is a lie, a lie. Our respected and saintly Tatiana Markovna!" Paulina Karpovna burst out laughing, but checked herself ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov

... managed to take my stand on the lowest steps, where the pressure of the crowd behind and the working of the throng on the steps, raised me off my feet, and in about a quarter of an hour carried me, compressed into the smallest possible space, up the steps to the door, where the crowd burst in by fits, like water rushing out of a bottle. We esteemed ouvselves fortunate in getting room to stand in an open car, where, after a two hours' ride through the wind and pelting ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... never be able to learn any more than this. We have arrived at a sort of box-within-a-box theory of the make-up of matter. By a very elaborate system of unpacking, or by some violent external force that makes the inside burst open, as it were, we seem to be able to make pieces fly off from the atoms, these pieces being then projected into space with enormous force and velocity. There are theories galore of the structure of ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price

... that you would be willing to defy anyone to find one speck of dust in the place. Every article of food is under shining glass. The floor is white tiled. But the food is what attracts one. The pies swell out as if about to burst. To look at the bread and rolls makes one hungry and to smell them hungrier still. This, you are told, is because only the purest ingredients are used. Many bakers use powdered eggs for baking, commonly imported from China; this cooperative uses only fresh eggs. They buy a better grade of flour ...
— Consumers' Cooperative Societies in New York State • The Consumers' League of New York

... strength and agility. His saddle bags over his arm, he went at once to the liveryman with whom he had left his horse on his journey to Charleston, and asked for another, his best, for the return ride to Pendleton. The liveryman stared at him a moment or two and then burst into an exclamation ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... he was on the porch of the hotel lying on a bench, talking with his companions who were standing about him. The hotel-keeper coming out saw the gentlemen standing, and bustling up, said, "Get up, my son, and let these gentlemen be seated." Mr. Stephens at once arose and his friends burst out laughing; they explained the situation to the hotel-keeper who ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly



Words linked to "Burst" :   shatter, split up, belch, spring, come apart, fall in, stave, emerge, separate, fits and starts, jump, change of integrity, occurrence, express emotion, crump, firing, activity, blow, give, feature, bound, have, occurrent, pop, stave in, happening, cave in, implode, express feelings, rush, change integrity, fire, leap, founder, give way, natural event, detonation, go off, fulmination, extravasate, fall apart



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