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Cast off   /kæst ɔf/   Listen
Cast off

verb
1.
Get rid of.  Synonyms: cast, drop, shake off, shed, throw, throw away, throw off.  "Shed your clothes"
2.
Make the last row of stitches when knitting.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Cast off" Quotes from Famous Books



... past but he does not deny his faith in humanity; his doctrine only postpones to a time secularly remote the redemption of humanity from its secular suffering. He begins at once to do good; he rescues his kind elder brother from the repudiation of the daughter whom he has cast off because her seduction has condemned her to a life of shame; he wins back the poor prostitute to her home, and forces her father to tolerate ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... walk he has no equal at home or abroad; but his walk is not the highest. We feel that something is wanting, and yet we can hardly extol him too highly. He brought comedy into close relation with every-day life; he is the father of the modern French stage, which has gradually cast off the old conventional personages. The French dramatists of to-day are not men of genius like Moliere, but, in their airy, sparkling plays, they represent the freaks, follies, and fancies of society so exquisitely that nothing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... gray of the early morning we saw a vessel approaching, which our friends on the Minnesota said was the Merrimac. Our fastenings were cast off, our machinery started, and we moved out to meet her half-way. We had come a long way to fight her, and did not intend to lose ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.

... past eleven as I rode by it, and when I got down to the jetty there was no yacht to be seen. She had been cast off from her moorings ten minutes before eleven, and as the clock struck she had sailed out of the harbor. I would have followed in a boat, but it was a fine starlight night, with a fresh wind blowing, and the sailors on ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... some huge sea, whose tumbling hills, as they Turn restless sides about, are black or grey, Or green, or glittering with the golden flame; The wind has fallen now, but still the same The mighty army moves, as if to drown This lone, bare rock, whose shear scarped sides of brown Cast off the weight of waves in clouds of spray. Alas! what ships upon an evil day Bent over to the wind in this ill sea? What navy, whose rent bones lie wretchedly Beneath these cliffs? a mighty one it was, A fearful storm to bring such things ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris

... shall cast off some of our own wessicality by accepting that there have been falls of red substance ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... sunk—a cancer in the face—he bore with exemplary fortitude, a fortitude drawn from the natural resources of his vigorous mind, and unhappily not aided by the consolations of any religion; for, having early cast off the belief in revelation, he had substituted in its stead a dark and gloomy naturalism, which even rejected those glimmerings of hope as to futurity not untasted by the wiser ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous

... spreading peach of a liberal education to the deadly upas of Benson genealogy and the sturdy old chestnut of mama's experience. The vox Bensonorum was as familiar as the Congregational bell. The supply of it exceeded the demand, and after every one was loaded and ready to cast off, the barrels came rolling down ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller

... lay three or four budgets, old iron skillets, hammers, lumps of melted lead, broken pots, a quantity of cows' horns for spoons, wooden dishes that required clasping, old kettles that wanted repair, a couple of cast off Poteen Stills, and a new one half made—all of which were visible by the light of a large log of bog-fir which lay burning in the fire-place. On looking around him, he descended a flight of stone ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... or fifteen miles down stream between many islands of red granite, smoothly polished by the rushing waters of countless centuries. Back again at Assuan, they embarked on a luxurious river steamer, the Sakkara, and immediately cast off, for ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... home again in the heads of their forces) appears plainly in the story of lephtha. The Ammonites making war upon Israel, the Gileadites in fear send to lephtha, a bastard of their family whom they had cast off, and article with him, if he will assist them against the Ammonites, to make him their ruler; which they do in these words, And the people made him head and captain over them, Judg. xi, ii. which was, as it seems, ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... instance, in the decorous quartos of Roughhead, but in the hoary blackletter folios, looking older than they are—for blackletter adhered to the Statutes after it had been cast off by other literature—that one will find such specimens of ancestral ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... school were in the habit of employing the ameliorating adjective, but there were still a few fellows in Pocket's house who made an insulting point of the other. All, however, seemed agreed as to the noun; and it was pleasant to cast off friend and foe for a change, to sit comfortably unknown and unsuspected of one's foibles in the train. It made Pocket feel a bit of a man; but then he really was almost seventeen, and in the Middle Fifth, and allowed to smoke asthma cigarettes in bed. He took one out ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung

... or opportunity, however, to dwell at length upon such matters; for a quarter of an hour later the tug had cast off, the pilot had taken charge, and the Quernmore, under her own steam, was proceeding rapidly down ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... came aboard. It was soon evident that there was something doing, for in a few minutes the propeller blades began to churn the water, and the exhaust of the engines fluttered at the port-holes. The tow lines ashore were cast off and then very gracefully and almost noiselessly the Dewey began slipping away from its dock. The head of the vessel swung around and pointed out ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll

... eyes glistening. "A bat—it's blind—stone blind!" the jilted girl echoed gleefully. "There's a sign for you, Mistress Jasper Tipton, to conjure with!" She let out a screech and then a weird laugh that echoed through Crockett's Hollow. She cast off the coverlid and in one bound was in the middle of the floor, though she had lain long weeks pining away. She clapped her hands high overhead like she was shouting at meeting. Sabrina laughed again and ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... beginning of 'Don Carlos'. The result was the title of Weimar Councillor. This was very pleasant indeed; for while it put no florins in his purse, it gave him an honorable status in the German world. He had been cast off by a prince of the barbarians to be taken up by the prince of the Greeks! Henceforth he was in a sense the colleague of Goethe and Wieland. He began to speak of the Duke of Weimar as his duke, and to indulge in day-dreams ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... in mute attention to his notes We stood, when lo! that old man venerable Exclaiming, "How is this, ye tardy spirits? What negligence detains you loit'ring here? Run to the mountain to cast off those scales, That from your eyes the sight ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... British democracy might become restive under taxation imposed for objects the utility of which would not perhaps be fully appreciated, and might therefore be disposed to cast off too hastily the mantle of Imperialism. It is but a short time ago that an influential school of politicians persistently dwelt on the theme that the colonies were a burthen to the Mother Country. Although, for the time being, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... possess it entire. But I can point out to you a free man, that you may no longer seek an example. Diogenes was free. How was he free? Not because he was born of free parents, but because he was himself free, because he had cast off all the handles of slavery, and it was not possible for any man to approach him, nor had any man the means of laying hold of him to enslave him. He had everything easily loosed, everything only hanging to him. If you laid hold of his property, he would have rather ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus

... struggles. Regaining his strength, he plunges, kicks, and bites in all directions, the Gauchos nimbly getting out of his way. The dormador, watching his opportunity, now leaps into the saddle, and signs to his companions to cast off the leg-lasso. Immediately the colt, finding his legs free, jumps straight off the ground, and then commences to back, plunge, and dash furiously out. The dormador, however, sticks on; and another Gaucho, coming behind, administers a lash with his long cutting whip, which makes the ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... cast off, as if the thought of Psyche, or the presence of a genial guest had touched Mrs. Dean's chilly nature with ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... does seem to be losing ground. It's 'is ambition runs away with all 'is strength. As long as he kept still on his back, 'e gained. But now 'e seems to be trying to get hout of bed and leave his back be'ind 'im, as that 'ealing woman told him; and, like all of us, he isn't meant to cast off his own spinal column, bad as 'tis. His work won't 'urt 'im, if he takes it quiet; but, as a nurse trained in the Royal 'Ospital, I must hinsist it is bad for any man to try to do Delsarte gymnastics on a hempty ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... love. They judge men solely according to their capacity for, or their zeal in, loving. And yet it takes more strength and manliness to resist love than to give way to it. They only care for men who are slaves to that passion. I admire those chaste and saintly men who have been able to cast off the bonds of the flesh. The highest point of the human mind is only reached by him who has never suffered himself to be dragged down by his senses. Christ taught the denial of the flesh both in precept and example. Newton never knew ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... advanced from Conradin on the south-west, and assaulted the salient angle at the extreme point of the spit of land on which the fort was built. In vain the Turks swarmed up the scaling-ladders; company after company was hurled down, a huddled mass of mangled flesh, and the ladders were cast off. Again the escalade began:—the Knights rolled huge blocks of masonry on the crowded throng below; when they got within arms' reach the scimitar was no match for the long two-handed swords of the Christians. At all three points after a splendid ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... that for all things a good and loving God will bring them into judgment. Happier still those who (like a few) retain in body and soul the health and buoyancy of twenty-one on to the very verge of forty, and seeming to grow younger-hearted as they grow older-headed, can cast off care and work at a moment's warning, laugh and frolic now as they did twenty years ago, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... attention to the bath is necessary to produce a healthy frame. There is a continual new growth of scarf skin going on, and there are likewise the secretions from the perspiration ducts and oil tubes being poured forth. The outer skin which has served its purpose is being incessantly cast off in the—form of whitish looking powder, but instead of being thrown clear from the body it clings to it and becomes entangled with the perspiration and oily material, thus forming an impediment to the free action of the skin. If the pores of the latter be obstructed and occluded in this manner, ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... while Hardin's eyes rove wildly over the face of the woman he has cast off, the direct interrogatory ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... own guilt and unworthiness, a prey to grief and perplexity. If he was heard to exclaim, "Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work, I will triumph in the works of thy hands," he was also heard to cry out, "Will the Lord cast off for ever? And will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?" A man who believes Christ to be the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... When he stopped to consider that she might fall in love with him he drove the thought from him. When he realized that his folly had become sweet and that the sweetness imperiously drew him, he likewise cast off that thought. The present was enough. And if he had any treasures of mind and heart he gave ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... screw, and kept the launch alongside the wharf while Merriman cast off first the bow and then the stern ropes. Then, steering out towards the middle of the river, he swung round and they began to slip ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts

... the viceroyalty of La Plata had been the first to cast off the authority of the home government, so it was the first to complete its separation from Spain. Despite the fact that disorder was rampant everywhere and that most of the local districts could not or would not send deputies, ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd

... was at all desirable. At last, after some minutes, long as hours, I touched land, and scrambled up the sandy beach as though the avenger of blood had been behind me. One by one the rest came ashore—some stark naked, having cast off or lost their remaining clothes in the whirling eddies; others yet retaining some part of their dress. Every one looked around to see whether his companions arrived; and when all nine stood together on the beach, all cast themselves prostrate on the sands, to thank Heaven for a new lease of ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... you M[aster]. Steward, where's our Master? Are we vndone, cast off, nothing remaining? Stew. Alack my Fellowes, what should I say to you? Let me be recorded by the righteous Gods, I am as poore ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... every day news from Rebours, informing me how matters went. This Rebours I have mentioned before to have been the object of my husband's passion, but she was now cast off, and, consequently, was no friend to Fosseuse, who had gained that place in his affection she had before held. She, therefore, strove all she could to circumvent her; and, indeed, she was fully qualified for such a purpose, as she was a cunning, deceitful young person. She ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... situation with the smallest chance of safety, and therefore immediately got under sail, despatching Captain Hoppner, with every individual, except a few for working the ship, to continue getting the things on board the Fury, while the Hecla stood off and on. It was a quarter-past three P.M. when we cast off, the wind then blowing fresh from the north-east, or about two points on the land, which caused some surf on the beach. Captain Hoppner had scarcely been an hour on board the Fury, and was busily engaged in getting the anchors and cables on board, when we observed ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... battle raged fiercely, and More watched anxiously for the issue. He withdrew himself as far as possible from the king, and kept as much as might be to his own business. At length Henry was victorious. The greater part of the clergy cast off their allegiance to the pope and took the oath required by the king. Sir Thomas saw and understood, and placed his resignation as lord chancellor in the hands ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... of Mary, therefore, that the lovers dallied. Otherwise, they said to each other, Mills would cast off his shackles, ask for his freedom, and then he and Dulcie would fly to Paris, where nobody probed into pasts and where they could make ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... Pasquale cast off the bit of line that moored his skiff, shipped his single oar, and with a parting word to ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... stood on the quarter-deck of the cruising sampan. Lee Fu took his station at the great tiller. The wind lulled, as the trough of a squall passed over; he gave a few sharp orders. Moorings were cast off, a pinch of sail was lifted forward. The big craft found her freedom with a lurch and a stagger; then pulled herself together and left the land with a steady rush, skimming dead before the wind across the smooth upper reach ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... ceased, the effect continues, nor do we see any remedy for the evil until our youth shall be taught to go up to the same original and ever-living fountains of all literature, at which the Miltons, and the Barrows, and the Drydens drank in so much of their enthusiasm and inspiration, and to cast off entirely that slavish dependence upon the opinions of others which they must feel, who take their knowledge of what it is either their duty, their interest, or their ambition ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... Miseries. Jupiter gave permission for all men to bring their grievances to a certain plain, and to exchange them with any others that had been cast off. Fancy helped them; but though the heap was so enormous, not one single vice was to be found amongst the rubbish. Old women threw away their wrinkles, and young ones their mole-spots; some cast on the heap poverty; many their red noses and bad teeth; but no one his crimes. Now came the choice. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... So saying, Joseph cast off his father's shaggy coat, seized the sling in his left hand and the crook in his right and ran swiftly out to the brow of the hill. He was a strong lad, large of frame and a swift runner, and the sling in his hand was a sure weapon. The old man looked after him with pride, as ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various

... woman! She caused me all sorts of worries." But he did not say what the annoyances were. He could not say that he had cast off Marya Nikolaevna because the tea was weak, and, above all, because she would look after him, as though he were ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... very life, and they know it. If they had any doubt of it before, there can be none now, for as they draw near to the entrance of the cove they see the canoes spreading out to intercept them. The big fierce-looking men, too, are in a state of wild excitement, evidently purposing an attack. They cast off their skin wraps from their shoulders, displaying their naked bronze bodies and arms, like those of a Colossus. Each has in his hand what appears to be a bit of cord uniting two balls, about the size of small oranges. It is the bolas, an innocent-looking thing, ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... 'The Spiral Road' and in some of the other stories both fantasy and narrative may be compared with Hawthorne in his most unearthly moods. The younger man has read his Nietzsche and has cast off his heritage of simple morals. Hawthorne's Puritanism finds no echo in these modern souls, all sceptical, wavering and unblessed. But Hawthorne's splendor of vision and his power of sympathy with a tormented mind do live again in the best of ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... hills, to list to the holy preaching. Hark! then roll forth at once the mighty tones of the organ, Hover like voices from God, aloft like invisible spirits. Like as Elias in heaven, when he cast from off him his mantle, So cast off the soul its garments of earth; and with one voice Chimed in the congregation, and sang an anthem immortal Of the sublime Wallin, of David's harp in the North-land Tuned to the choral of Luther; the song on its mighty pinions Took every living soul, and lifted it gently ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... or possibly make a dart at any women or children who might be passing, the men take the precaution of tying him down tight with ropes. When the time of seclusion is up, one of the last acts in the long series of ceremonies is to cast off the ropes and let the monster go free. He avails himself of his liberty to return to his subterranean abode, and the young men are brought back to ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... horse. He was standing where I had left him, his four legs far apart in a wide base. Between them was the thing cast off by Miller which had thrown us. I examined it by the light of a box of matches. It was a bunch of bananas, one of those gigantic clusters which can be cut from the palms. I got on my horse and rode ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... credulity, and impatient submission of the cheats which he sees practised upon him, and which by persuasion he suffers to be repeated, exhibit a strong picture of a weak mind betrayed by unlawful desires, to a false friend and the virtue of AEmilia is such as we often find, worn loosely but not cast off, easy to commit small crimes, but quickend and alarmed at ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson

... fact in universal Nature, beyond what the experience itself bears witness of; or how, in the process of interpreting in general language the testimony of experience, the limitations of the testimony itself can be cast off. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... portion of it if thou wilt raise thyself up a moment—yonder, by the rushes and the green morass, lay a large stump of an alder tree. The three swans alighted upon it, flapped their wings, and looked about them. One of them cast off her swan disguise, and I recognised in her our royal princess from Egypt. She sat now with no other mantle around her than her long dark hair. I heard her desire the other two to take good care of her magic swan garb, while she ducked down under the water to pluck the flower which she thought ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... to allow of the captive making his escape without being observed. I again cast off the ropes, therefore, and stole quietly away from the spot. The moment I had gone, he must have crept away—crouching down, Indian fashion, until he had got to a safe distance from the camp, when, having first secured the weapons ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston

... question had changed the course of Horace's life. But his father had not lived to see the fruits of his sacrifice. The last time Horace saw him had been on the beach at Brindisi, just as his vessel cast off from its moorings, and the wind began to fill the widespread sails. Horace had always realised that the most poignant emotion of a life which had been singularly free from despotic passions had come to him on that day ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson

... something or other happens to make them withdraw their bounty; and sometimes the ladies that are thus well used are not careful by a prudent conduct to preserve the esteem of their persons, or the nice article of their fidelity, and then they are justly cast off ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... thoroughly the standing of the church. While these changes were not unproductive of good at that time, they were distasteful to the nation, and soon became injurious, both to freedom and knowledge, until at length, under the dynasty of the Tudors, the ecclesiastical shackles were cast off, and the feudal bonds began gradually to ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... again began to run out Edmund determined at all risks to proceed to sea. The moorings were cast off from the shore and the Dragon suffered to drift down. Men with poles took their stations in her bows and sounded continually, while at her stern two anchors were prepared in readiness to drop at a moment's notice. Several times the water shoaled so much that Edmund was ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... I went on board, and directed English to cast off the fastenings and to get ready to make sail. Pretty soon Sayres came on board. It was a dead calm, and we were obliged to get the boat out to get the vessel's head round. After dropping down a half a ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton

... This moon changes every two hours, passing all phases in a single martial night; is anomalous in the solar system, and tends to subvert that theory of cosmic evolution wherein a rotating gaseous sun cast off concentric rings, afterward becoming planets. Astronomers were not satisfied with the telescope; true, they beheld the phenomena of the solar system; planets rotating on axes, and satellites revolving about them. They saw ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... woman will hardly raise herself by being untrue to her husband.' She, too, yearned for her mother;—but there was never a moment's doubt in her mind to which she would cling if at last it should become necessary that one should be cast off. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... cast off, and the Seattle No. 4 was pulling slowly out from the shore. Her decks were piled high with freight and baggage, and swarmed with a heterogeneous company of Indians, dogs, and dog-mushers, prospectors, ...
— Lost Face • Jack London

... p.m.—We cast off our warps shortly after four o'clock, and were quickly running homeward at about seven knots an hour. The Concanens stood on deck with me watching Ceylon grow dim on the horizon. As the proud cone of Adam's Peak faded softly and slowly ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... fiord towards a cloud of black smoke ahead. Unknown to Geoffrey, it passed the grey Italianate Catholic cathedral, the shrine of the old Christian faith of Japan planted there by Saint Francis Xavier four hundred years ago. Anchor was cast off the island of Deshima, now moored to the mainland, where during the locked centuries the Dutch merchants had been permitted to remain in profitable servitude. Deshima has now been swallowed up by the Japanese town, and ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... was ready, and two men in her. The rope that held her to the side was cast off, and in an instant she glided away across the pool, towards an opening that had been unnoticed before, was deftly steered, and ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... in the boats and busy heaving and planting ice-anchors, but it was not until several hours had been spent in this tedious process that they succeeded in making fast to the berg. They had barely accomplished this when the berg gave indications of breaking up, so they cast off again in great haste, and not long afterwards a mass of ice, many tons in weight, fell from the edge of the berg close to where ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... rumour spoke the truth. But it is not a wife's part to be her husband's judge. You should have considered it your bounden duty humbly to have borne the cross that a higher will had laid upon you. But, instead of that, you rebelliously cast off your cross, you deserted the man whose stumbling footsteps you should have supported, you did what was bound to imperil your good name and reputation, and came very near to imperilling the reputation of others ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen

... 1st of November. Here their men had a scurvy trick played them by the Banyai. The Makololo had shot a hippopotamus, when a number of the natives came across, pretending to assist them in rolling it ashore, and advised them to cast off the rope, saying that it was an encumbrance. All were shouting and talking, when suddenly the carcass disappeared in a deep hole. The Makololo jumped in after it, one catching the tail, another a foot, but down it went, and they got but a lean fowl instead. It floated ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... great deal too bad,' said she to Alethea; 'it is exactly what we have read of in books about grandeur making people cast off their ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... that? See how peaceful she looks;" and with a sudden whim, Antony took the image and set it lying back on a soft cushion in a corner of the couch, at the same time throwing round its neck his black cloak, which he had cast off ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne

... might be purchased. It is chiefly for lack of a definite colonial policy that our rubber industry, by far the largest in the world, has to be dependent upon foreign sources for all its raw materials. Because the Philippines are likely to be cast off at any moment, American manufacturers are placing their plantations in the Dutch or British possessions. The Goodyear Company has secured a concession of 20,000 acres near Medan ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... moments of solitude were left her during Majendie's undressing. She devoted them to the final expulsion of all lingering illusions. She had long ago lost the illusion of her husband's immaculate goodness; and now she cast off, once for all, the dear and pitiful belief that had revived in her under her brief enchantment in the wood at Westleydale. She told herself that she had married a man who had, not only a lower standard than her own, ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... saw us retiring they returned to the guns which they had previously abandoned, and again commenced a fire on the boats, which made the water literally in a foam; this fire was returned by our quarter guns, but with very little effect. As we left the land, the breeze increased; the Severn cast off her tow, and our boats returned on board: at 25 minutes past eleven we fired our last gun, and the cannonade was succeeded by a storm of thunder and lightning. At midnight we anchored within three miles of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various

... monstrous shape and colors, and be able to thrust him from her heart. Instead of which, she saw him purer, truer, nobler, than ever before. With this perception came a sweet, strange peace and trust which she could not comprehend, and did not wish to cast off. ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... reached the commencement of the long dock, she saw the lines cast off. The great wheels gave a vigorous revolution, and the boat ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... uniformity, to adopt it without further alterations and with the resolution not to receive any minister who will not subscribe to it. Thus, in publishing the Platform, Schmucker and his compeers cast off the Lutheran mask and revealed the true inwardness of their intolerant Reformed spirit—a blunder which served to frustrate their own sinister objects. The reception which this document met was a sore disappointment ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... "Cast off her hand," said Spike reproachfully, "she'll swamp the boat by her struggles—get rid of her at once! Cut her fingers off if she wont ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... sound of his own voice Cast off their disease as a serpent casts its skin For what will not custom excuse and sanctify? Force which had compelled every one to do as his neighbors Galenus—What I like is bad for me, what I loathe is wholesome He has the gift of being easily consoled ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... you. Blessed if it ain't a comfort to find somebody who'll do what I tell 'em. Now you,' he says to the servant, 'put them things aboard and clear out as quick as you've a mind to. You and I are through; understand? Don't let me find you hangin' around the place when I get back. Cast off, Sol.' ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... of twenty-seven days we came in sight of land, which we judged to be a continent, being about a thousand leagues west of the Fortunate Islands, now called the Grand Canaries. Here we anchored our ships at a league and a half from the shore, and, having cast off our boats and filled them with men and arms, proceeded to land. Before we landed we were much cheered by the sight of many people rambling along the shore. We found that they were all in a state of nudity, and they appeared to be afraid of us, as I suppose from seeing us clothed ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober

... as I looked at Mrs. Peet, that she would never be persuaded to cast off the gathered brown silk bonnet and the plain shawl that she had worn so many years; but Isabella might think it best to insist upon more modern fashions. Mrs. Peet suggested, as if it were a matter ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... the driver said, politely explanatory. "Ye see, miss, I carry the mail this trip an' the parcel-post traffic is right heavy, as ye might say. . . . Belay that, Jerry!" he observed to the nigh horse that was stamping because of the pest of flies. "We'll cast off in a minute and get under way. . . . No, miss, I can't take 'em; but Perry Baker'll likely go over to the Haven to-night and he'll fetch 'em for ye. I got all ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... ministers. Now, Lord of Kings! Thyself art driven forth on foot. Yet, stay! Think, Harišchandra! how wilt thou endure The dust, the heat, the toil? Stay, mighty prince, Nor cast thy duty off. Oh, show to us Some mercy, for herein thy duty lies. Behold, we cast off all for thee! Our wives, Our wealth, our children, our possessions, all Have we relinquished; like thy shadow, We would follow thee. Oh leave us not! For wheresoe'er thou art is happiness, And heaven itself would be no heaven to us Without our prince." ...
— Mârkandeya Purâna, Books VII., VIII. • Rev. B. Hale Wortham

... art great enough, but I know not what luck thou mayest bear about to cast off this matter from thee; but it is like, indeed, that thou didst ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... nearer," he said to the clerk, "for this infection is most subtle, and—be so good as to cast off that filthy cloak of yours and ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... mission, but Marie, unfortunately blinded by those about her to her real interests, was indifferent to the just resentment of an able and faithful servant. "Non lo faro mai," was her only remark; and one of the most efficient and zealous of her ministers was carelessly cast off.[110] ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... wisely observes, wherever it exists, must be the true constitution of the state, by whatever formal appellation it may pass. For, though he informs the Assembly that the more considerable part of the army have not cast off their obedience, but are still attached to their duty, yet those travellers who have seen the corps whose conduct is the best rather observe in them the absence of mutiny ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... I'd fain cast off, I cannot read, 'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large Down in the meadow, where is richer feed, And will not mind to hit ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... had possessed before, but David, breaking through the crusts of association, getting beyond and beneath the Sunday-school teacher and minister, came for the first time upon the real man in his friend, apart from trappings—cast off the old sense of pupilage, and found a brother ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and we should probably be quite mistaken in imagining that he travelled about with a toga in his baggage, or, as the Authorised Version calls it, his "carriage." When out of town, in his country-seat or when amusing himself at home in the city, especially in the warmer weather, the Roman cast off his toga with a sigh of relief. In the provincial towns of Italy, though theoretically as much in demand, this blanket-like covering was little used by any man except on the most formal public and religious occasions, ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... a fitting place for you? What trouble agitates you—fear congeals? What do you come to seek amidst your foes? Dare you approach this temple of profaneness? Have you cast off ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley

... Uncle Dick, from shore, who had seen it all perfectly. At the same time he cast off his coat and was tugging at his shoes, making ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... back aboard the barge, cast off the mooring-lines of the Brutus, and with a boat-book gave her a shove which carried her out into the middle of the river. She went bobbing away gently on the ebb-tide, bound for the deep water out in the Bight of Tyee where, ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... as yourself; sharp and clear in the gray atmosphere the leafless trees and white farmhouses stand out, backed by a curtain of mist hanging on the hills in the horizon. With eager eyes you take all in; nothing escapes you; you have cast off care for the day. How pleasant and cheerful everything and everyone looks! Even the cocks and hens, scratching by the road-side, have a friendly air. The turnpike-man relaxes, in favour of your 'pink,' his usual grimness. ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... sport, and, like many another device boys make, can be made of material often cast off by their people as rubbish. The principle material necessary for the construction of a water bicycle is oil barrels. Flour barrels will not do-they are not strong enough, nor can they be made perfectly airtight. The grocer can furnish you with oil barrels at a very small cost, probably ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... off that way now, sir," remarked the mate. "I noticed him beating up for the path as you brought up the Articles." Rolfe halted suddenly at the sound of grinding teeth and stared at the skipper in wonderment. But Barry cast off the spasm of rage and went ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... knowledge of the right divisions of truth is also evident in the general impression that God has cast off His people, the Jews, and that the Gentiles are their rightful successors and the recipients of the blessings of their unfulfilled prophecies. This confusion is due to a failure to distinguish between this and ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer

... delivered of a princess, which innocent babe underwent the same fate as the princes her brothers; for the two sisters being determined not to desist from their detestable schemes, till they had seen the queen their younger sister at least cast off, turned out, and humbled, exposed this infant also on the canal. But the princess, as well as the two princes her brothers, was preserved from death by the compassion and charity of the intendant of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... down the foresail. After the boat came about, she had not righted the helm, and the Greyhound had been thrown up into the wind as she heeled over and took in the flood of water. She now lay with her sails flapping, and Fanny cast off the main-sheet, rather to stop the fluttering than to avoid further peril. Fortunately, this was the proper ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic

... the Revolution of the seventeenth century failed. It failed, at least, as an attempt to establish social equality and liberty of conscience. The feudal past, with a feudal Europe to support it, sat too heavy on us to be cast off. By a convulsive effort we broke loose, for a moment, from the hereditary aristocracy and the hierarchy. For a moment we placed a popular chief in power, though Cromwell was obliged by circumstances, as well as impelled by his own ambition, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... the prophets the feminine gender is often used when speaking of the House of Israel, and the masculine when denoting the House of Judah. Quite frequently Israel is spoken of as a divorced woman, as being cast off, and as being barren. Judah remaining faithful to the throne of David and the temple service, and abiding in the land much longer than Israel, is presented as one married. So you will understand Jeremiah iii. 8, when he ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... already the holy beagles begin to snuff the scent, and I expect every moment to see them cast off, and hear them after me in full cry; but as I am an old fox, I shall give them dodging and doubling for it, and by and by I intend to earth among ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... deemed, by right divine. So it was only natural that with waxing manhood his eyes and his thoughts turned more often to that England which he had never seen, but which, as he had been so often and often assured, was only waiting for a fit opportunity to cast off the Hanoverian yoke and welcome any lineal descendant of the Charleses and the Jameses of ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... his Son Jesus Christ, by the word; judge not thereof by feeling, nor by the reports of thy conscience; conscience is oftentimes here befooled and made to go quite beside the word. It was judging without the word that made David say, I am cast off from God's eyes, and shall perish one day by the hand of Saul; Psalm xxxi. 22; ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan

... usually back at the wharf at 2.30 p.m. with the boat loaded. But things did not invariably go well; the wind had a habit of springing up suddenly, and the breakers 011 the bar would follow suit. Under such circumstances we often had to cast off from the vessel's side and anchor in a tumbling sea, with only a small portion of the appointed cargo on board. Perhaps, if it were not considered too dangerous, Captain Jackson might come out with the harbor tug and tow us in; otherwise we ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... word before him; but he said: "I see the road; I see the ways we must journey—I have long cast off the load, The burden of men's bearing wherein they needs must bind All-eager hope unseeing with eyeless fear and blind: So today shall my riding be light; nor now, nor ever henceforth Shall men curse the sword of Hogni in the tale ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... Columbia tried to advance, tried to back water, and then gave up the contest, standing upright on her flat flooring with no motion beyond an occasional faint bumping. The tugboat Aid, half a mile ahead of us, cast off from the vessel which it was taking out, and came to our assistance. Apparently it had been engaged during the night in watching the harbor; for on deck stood a score of volunteers in gray overcoats, while the naval-looking personage with grizzled whiskers who seemed to command ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... parts of the body do bear alike. Thus was the mould made; but when it came off there was little pleasure in it, as it looks in the mould, nor any resemblance whatever there will be in the figure, when I come to see it cast off, which I am to call for a day or two hence, which I shall long to see. Thence to Hercules Pillars, and there my wife and W. Hewer and I dined, and back to White Hall, where I staid till the Duke of York come from hunting, which he did by and by, and, when ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... between act and grace) on the other hand, depends entirely on the free-will, since, according to the Council of Trent as well as that of the Vatican, efficacious grace does not operate irresistibly but can be "cast off." The efficacia infallibilitatis springs from God's certain foreknowledge (scientia ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... form the whole public opinion of the day. They are conscious that in them is concentrated the enlightenment of the period. The class to which they belong is socially and politically dominant—the advance guard of national progress. It has finally cast off the incubus of a retrograde political system; it has placed the nation in a position of unprecedented importance in Europe; and it is setting an example of ordered liberty to the whole civilised world. It has forced the Church and the priesthood ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen

... daughter, Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable; When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails She'll flay thy wolfish visage. Thou shalt find That I'll resume the shape, which thou dost think I have cast off forever. ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... Deleah's figure and the fragility of her small face, with its innocent, unconscious allurement, were increased by the black garments she still wore. To cast off her mourning for her unhappy father would be, she felt, a slight ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... have nice birt'-mark, anyhow," said Doret, going back of the bar for some water. They revived the man, then bound up his injury hastily, and as the steamer cast off they led him to the bank and passed his grip-sacks to a roustabout. He said no word as he walked unsteadily up the plank, but turned and stared malignantly at them from the deck; then, as the craft swung outward into the stream, he grinned through ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... representative. He reproached her, writes Peter Martyr from Ferdinand's Court, with her father's ill-faith, and taunted her with his own conquests. To this brutality Martyr attributes the premature birth of Catherine's fourth son towards the end of 1514.[499] Henry, in fact, was preparing to cast off, not merely the Spanish alliance, but his Spanish wife. He was negotiating for a joint attack on Castile with Louis XII. and threatening the divorce of Catherine.[500] "It is said," writes a Venetian from Rome in August, 1514, "that the ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... unhappiness for himself if he stayed there,—for, be it here declared, he was in love with Viola Gwyn. No, worse than that, he was in love with Minda Carter,—and therein lay all the bitterness that filled his soul. He could never have her. Even though she cast off the ardent Lapelle, still he could not have her for his own. The bars were up, and it was now beyond his power to lower them. And so, with this resolve firmly fixed in his mind, he gave himself up to a strange sort ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... We cast off from the dirty quay and steamed out to sea. On the deck was many a reminiscent one who looked back bare-headed on the paling shores, in his heart a tribute to those who, in the battle field's burial spot or in the little Russian churchyards ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... "Cast off from thee those robes," she said, "That riche and costlye bee; And drinke thou up this deadlye draught Which I ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards

... sad to part thus with the millions of our fellow-beings who would not heed the warnings that were lavished upon them; but, while our hearts may be rent with the thought, it is our duty to cast off the burden of vain regrets and concentrate all our energies upon the great ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... the natives require as payment may be purchased at Rag Fair, being extremely partial to cast off wearing apparel ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry

... were now cast off, and they got under way, while Marchmont stole very quietly to the door of the hatchway which led down to the saloon where the Bishop and the actress were unsuspectingly lunching, and softly ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... would have taken to his arms so gladly and loved and cherished as the priceless thing he had once thought her to be. The first moments of agony which followed the reading of the letter were Daisy's wholly, and in bitterness of soul the man she had cast off and thought to take again cried out, as he stretched his arms toward an invisible form: "Too late, darling—too late. But had it come two months, one month, or even one week ago, I would—would—have gone to you over land and sea, but now—another is in your place, another is my wife; Julia—poor, ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes

... years before, so that we can now consider ourselves as an object of contemplation. But, of course, I was as yet too young, and the epoch which was represented by those papers was still too near. As in our younger years we do not in general easily cast off a certain self- complacent conceit, this especially shows itself in despising what we have been but a little time before; for while, indeed, we perceive, as we advance from step to step, that those things which we regard as good and excellent in ourselves ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



Words linked to "Cast off" :   run up, take away, slough, take, remove, sew, abscise, cast on, stitch, handicraft, autotomize, autotomise, exfoliate, exuviate, molt, withdraw, moult, sew together



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