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Combatant   /kəmbˈætənt/   Listen
Combatant

adjective
1.
Engaging in or ready for combat.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Combatant" Quotes from Famous Books



... was going. Johnny said to Jane, 'War is beastly, but one's got to be in it.' He took that line, as so many others did. 'Juke's going,' he said. 'As a combatant, I mean, not a padre. He thinks the war could have been prevented with a little intelligence; so it could, I dare say; but as there wasn't a little intelligence and it wasn't prevented, he's going in. He says it ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay

... waged the awful fray from morn till dewy eve, at less than a yard's distance. There has never been anything like it; their endurance was something marvellous! During the night each combatant sneaked silently away; and the historian of the period obscurely alludes to the battle as "the naval engagement of ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... of the Salon of 1866 that M. Zola, who criticised that exhibition in the Evenement newspaper,* first came to the front as an art critic, slashing out, to right and left, with all the vigour of a born combatant, and championing M. Manet—whom he did not as yet know personally—with a fervour born of the strongest convictions. He had come to the conclusion that the derided painter was being treated with injustice, and that opinion sufficed to throw him into the fray; even as, in more recent years, the belief ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... end of a glade he saw a carriage standing and four gentlemen stamping their feet in order to keep them warm, and he was obliged to gasp in order to get breath. Rival and Boisrenard alighted first, then the doctor and the combatant. ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... violently with a branch of the wild rose, and beat him till he lay as one dead; but quickly reviving, Ioskeha assaulted Tawiscara with the antler of a deer, and dealing him a blow in the side, the blood flowed from the wound in streams. The unlucky combatant fled from the field, hastening toward the west, and as he ran the drops of his blood which fell upon the earth turned into flint stones. Ioskeha did not spare him, but hastening after, finally slew him. He did not, however, actually kill him, for, as I have ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton

... therefore, none too much room, and the combatant who was the first to give way would quickly be driven ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... hostility which he had felt for his rival from the first. The more he mused, the more he became humbled by his thoughts; and when he recollected the avowed profession of Stevens his shame increased. He felt how shocking it was to intimate to a sworn non-combatant the idea of a personal conflict. To what point of self-abasement his thoughts would have carried him, may only be conjectured; he might have hurried forward to overtake his antagonist with the distinct purpose of making the most ample apology; nay, more, such was the distinct thought which was now ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... in Christ sweet Jesus: I Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write to you in His precious Blood: with desire to see you a true combatant against the wiles and vexations of the devil, and the malice and persecution of men, and against your own fleshly self-love, which is an enemy that, unless a man drives it away by virtue and holy hate, prevents him from ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... of the leading wagon. The shout of "Indians" from Bryan's lips, the sight of scurry on the ridge ahead brought the engineer and aide-de-camp springing out, rifle in hand, to take their manly part in the coming fray. It should have brought Major Burleigh too, but that appropriately named non-combatant never showed outside. An instant more and to the sound of rising thunder, before the astonished eyes of the cavalry line there burst into view, full tear for safety, the uncouth, yet marvelously swift-running ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... which was first introduced among civilised nations by the barbarous Huns and Longobards. He likewise pretended to ridicule the use of firearms, which confounded all the distinctions of skill and address, and deprived a combatant of the opportunity ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... neurasthenia) after the long strain of campaigning—all this is brought before you in the most vivid manner. Mr. GILBERT FRANKAU writes with a fierce sincerity and with perhaps the defects of that sincerity—a bitterness against the non-combatant which was not usual in the fighting- man, at least when he was fighting; or perhaps it was only that they were too kind then to say so. Also as "one of us" he is a little overwhelmed by the sterling qualities of the rank-and-file—qualities ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various

... their quaint spiked head-gear; while hundreds of British staff officers (where they come from, or what they do I don't know), with tabs of all colours (and as one officer remarked to me only the other day, 'When the blue and green tabs appear it's time to capture another town'!) And a sprinkling of combatant officers, English sisters, French attaches, and American Red Cross ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown

... thrilling story about the adventure of a criminal with a tiger. The poor man was condemned, as is the custom in that country, to fight a large royal tiger, whose ferocity was raised to the highest point by want of food and artificial irritation. The only weapon allowed to the human combatant was a lance, with the point broken off. After wrapping a cloth round his left fist and arm, the man entered the arena with an air of undaunted calmness, and fixed a steady, menacing gaze upon the brute. The tiger sprang ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... horsewhipped me. That fact having been made public, all the facts in connection need to be also, or silence on my part would seem more than singular, and with many would be proof either that I was conscious of some unworthy aim in publishing the article, or else that my "non-combatant" principles are but a convenient cloak alike of physical and moral cowardice. I therefore shall try to present a graphic but truthful picture of this whole affair, but shall forbear all comments, presuming ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... each other in single-handed combat, it would be with the same unrelenting ferocity as before. The episode that had just taken place would be as though it had never been. How strange that such an encounter did take place sooner than either white or red combatant dreamed! ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis

... obscure feeling of that dark power which moved in ancient tragedy: and we should be made to know why it is that, with the one exception of the Persae, founded on the second Persian invasion, [11] in which Aeschylus, the author, was personally a combatant, and therefore a contemporary, not one of the thirty-four Greek tragedies surviving, but recedes into the dusky shades of the heroic, or ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... distinguish what was excellent or defective in the kind. The orator in actual business was the best preceptor: the instructions which he gave, were living eloquence, the substance, and not the shadow. He was himself a real combatant, engaged with a zealous antagonist, both in earnest, and not like gladiators, in a mock contest, fighting for prizes. It was a struggle for victory, before an audience always changing, yet always full; where the speaker had his enemies as well as his admirers; and between both, what ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... Harry's patient fortitude for cowardice, began now to entertain the sincerest respect for his courage, and gathered round the combatants in silence. A second time did Harry rise and attack his stronger adversary with the cool intrepidity of a veteran combatant. The battle now began to grow more dreadful and more violent. Mash had superior strength and dexterity, and greater habitude of fighting; his blows were aimed with equal skill and force, and each appeared sufficient to crush an enemy so much inferior in size, in strength, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... MURDER!—A Correspondent of the Times, protesting against the assumption of combatant rank by the Army Surgeons, writes:—"A military doctor is armed, and like others is entitled to defend himself when attacked, but that is a very different thing from giving him full licence to kill." The Correspondent ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various

... have explained themselves in the ten or twenty or thirty years since he came before his untried public in those almost plaintive paragraphs in which he introduced himself to his readers,—for the Preface writer, no matter how fierce a combatant he may prove, comes on to the stage with his shield on his right arm and his sword in his ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... fracas was about, thought so; and softly called to others to witness it. On one side of the table rose Lady Dunborough, grim and venomous; on the other the girl stood virtually alone—for the elder woman had fallen to weeping helplessly, and the attorney seemed to be unequal to this new combatant. Even so, and though her face betrayed trouble and some irresolution, she did not blench, but faced her accuser with a slowly rising ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... younger combatant gave up the fight. But as he turned, instead of merely crawling away defeated, he made a sudden convulsive sprawl which the older bull was not expecting, and dug his teeth into the cow who had given rise to all the trouble, and lifted her bodily. The old beachmaster, his mane ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... do more than this would involve an explanation of the politics of the country and the measures before Congress much more elaborate than would be possible in this volume. It will be necessary, therefore, to confine ourselves to drawing a picture of him in his character as the great combatant of Southern slavery. In the waging of this mighty conflict we shall see both his mind and his character developing in strength even in these years of his old age, and his traits standing forth in bolder relief than ever before. In his place on the floor ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... smallnesses and distractions of daily duty, nourishment for their spirits. Do you remember what Jesus said? 'My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.' We, too, may have the same meat to eat which the world knows not of, and He will give that hidden manna to the combatant as well as 'to him that overcometh.' In the measure in which 'we follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth,' in that measure do we find—like the stores of provisions that Arctic explorers come upon, cached for them—food ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... Masses," and, with these in one hand and his staff in the other, set out for Frowenfeld's, not merely smarting but trembling under the humiliation of having been sent, for the first time in his life, to the rear as a non-combatant. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... as to forget for the moment, sprinted towards the back window; and he had gotten within twenty paces of the goal when Hopalong's Colt cracked a protest. Seeing that the warrior was no longer a combatant, Mr. Cassidy ran back to the door just as the stranger fell from his horse and crawled past Red. The door slammed shut, the props fell against it, and the two friends turned to the work of driving back the second band, which, however, had given up ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... Nicomedea the emperor held a gladiatorial contest there in honor of his birthday, for not even on that day did he refrain from slaughter. Here it is said that a combatant, being defeated, begged for his life, whereupon Antoninus said: "Go and ask your adversary. I am ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... units with the Italian army and the organizations at Murmansk, also including those en route from the States, approximately 2,053,347 men, less our losses. Of this total, there are in France 1,338,169 combatant troops. Forty divisions have arrived, of which the infantry personnel of ten have been used as replacements, leaving 30 divisions now in France organized into three armies of three ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... been as ripe as his genius, Coke might have been thrust aside in the encounter. Intrigues failed, because "one precedent of so raw a youth being promoted to so great a place" it was impossible to find. Coke was left master of the field, but neither combatant forgot the result of the contest. The new Attorney-General declined his marvelous opponent for Solicitor-General, and Bacon resolved to take unmeasured revenge both for ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... and construction to be given to this advertisement will be discussed infra, but it is perfectly plain that the master was fully justified in sailing on the appointed day from a neutral port with many neutral and non-combatant passengers, unless he and his company were willing to yield to the attempt of the German Government to terrify British shipping. No one familiar with the British character would expect that such a threat ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... humour, they began to pull at each other's coats and to jostle each other like quarrelsome curs. This was a sign that affairs were growing serious; and the police intervened. Again each combatant was pushed away by his companions into ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... Simultaneously Vespasian's advance guard beat at the gates. The besiegers turned, the mob was with them, and together they fought, first at the gates, then in the streets, in the Forum, retreating always, but like lions, their face to the foe. The volatile mob, noting the retreat, turned from combatant into spectator. Let the soldiers fight; it was their duty, not theirs; and, as the struggle continued, from roof and window they eyed it with that artistic delight which the arena had developed, applauding the clever thrusts, abusing the vanquished, robbing the dead, ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... candour that Law finds its way to the 'Cheese' as well as Literature; but the Law is, as a rule, of the non-combatant and, consequently, harmless order. Literary men who have been called to the bar, but do not practise; briefless young barristers, who do not object to mingling with newspaper men; with a sprinkling of retired solicitors (amazing dogs these for old port-wine; the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... sleeps, nor one who has lost his coat-of-mail, nor one who is naked, nor one who is dismayed, nor one who is a spectator, but no combatant, nor one who ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... of age for voluntary military service; compulsory military service ended in 2004; women serve in the armed forces, on naval ships since 1993, but are prohibited from serving in some combatant specialties; reserve ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... did not take the Englishman's view, they were all anxious to go. They were quite unstrung by what had occurred, this combat between the living and the dead. They looked with horrified awe at the spot where it had taken place. There stood the living combatant, still full of the fire of battle. Him whom he had fought was gone on the winds to the voiceless abodes of the departed, a breath, a shadow, a sudden chill on the cheek and nothing more. For a ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... from afar, this volume undertakes to present the observations of two women of culture who went forth with these black soldiers to war. The story is set forth in an interesting manner, under such topics as The Call and the Answer, The First Days in France, Welfare Organizations, The Combatant Troops in contradistinction to the Non-Combatant Troops, Pioneer Infantries, Over the Canteen in France, The Leave Area, Relationship with the French and the Religious Life Among the Troops. Many of these facts do not strike the reader as new, but ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... before the battle, I told General Pierola I had no objections to following him to the battlefield, but in consideration of being a non-combatant, I asked the privilege of selecting my own course, giving him my word of honor that I would not make any attempt to escape. He was satisfied and gave me a pass allowing the freedom I desired. The next day the cry arose ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds

... shake, 65 Power on an ancient consecrated throne, Strong in possession, founded in old custom; Power by a thousand tough and stringy roots Fixed to the people's pious nursery-faith. This, this will be no strife of strength with strength. 70 That feared I not. I brave each combatant, Whom I can look on, fixing eye to eye, Who full himself of courage kindles courage In me too. 'Tis a foe invisible, The which I fear—a fearful enemy, 75 Which in the human heart opposes me, By its coward fear alone made fearful to me. Not that, which full of life, instinct with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... this is the contempt for physical weakness and for women which marks early society too. The non-combatant population is sure to fare ill during the ages of combat. But these defects, too, are cured or lessened; women have now marvellous means of winning their way in the world; and mind without muscle has far greater force than muscle without mind. These are ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot

... of a crude impulse which the world is outgrowing, and which is in general least obvious in the manliest men. That clear and able English writer, Walter Bagehot, well describes "the contempt for physical weakness and for women which marks early society. The non-combatant population is sure to fare ill during the ages of combat. But these defects, too, are cured or lessened; women have now marvellous means of winning their way in the world; and mind without muscle has far greater force than muscle ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... whilst he toyed with her provoking breasts. Sometimes she would stoop to meet his kiss: but presently the sting of pleasure spurred them up to fiercer action; then began the storm of heaves, which, from the undermost combatant, were thrust at the same time, he crossing his hands over her, and drawing her home to him with a sweet violence: the inverted strokes of anvil over hammer soon brought on the critical period, in which all the ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... a rage went to Dundee and demanded vengeance on Lochiel and the whole race of Cameron. Dundee replied that the unfortunate gentleman who had fallen was a traitor to the clan as well as to the King. Was it ever heard of in war that the person of an enemy, a combatant in arms, was to be held inviolable on account of his name and descent? And, even if wrong had been done, how was it to be redressed? Half the army must slaughter the other half before a finger could be laid on Lochiel. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to every one according as God shall enable thee. Bear the infirmities of all, as a perfect combatant; where the labour is great, ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... a bloomin' non-combatant, did 'e! That's just about wot 'e would say. When I've put in my boy's service—it's a bloomin' shame that doesn't count for pension—I'll take on as a privit. Then I'll be a Lance in a year—knowin' what I know about the ins an' outs o' things. In three years I'll be a bloomin' ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... carried a large axe or bill, was a strong, healthy, well-fed man; and though he had not perfect freedom, according to our modern acceptation of the term, he had an existence worth struggling for, and not entirely at the command of an imperious lord. Hence he was sometimes not much inferior, as a combatant, to the mail-clad man-at-arms. Now, at the battle of Crecy, the French, though the wretched serfs were so numerous, had only about 8000 men-at-arms; and though the English had not a third of that number of the higher kind of warriors, yet they had nearly 30,000 sturdy bowmen and billmen. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... combats were more frequently favourable to the criminal than to the innocent, because the bold wicked man is usually more ferocious and hardy than he whom he singles out as his victim, and who only wishes to preserve his own quiet enjoyment:—in this case the assailant is the more terrible combatant. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... and Miss Rose. By a series of queries, Edward at length discovered, with a painful feeling of surprise and shame, that Balmawhapple's submission and apology had been the consequence of a rencontre with the Baron before his guest had quitted his pillow, in which the younger combatant had been disarmed ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... each old combatant In the vast hall, at Bjorn's behest, And the uncertain shadows grant A swarthy ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier

... The successful combatant remained standing with the sweat pouring from his face and the blood still running down his chin. He stretched out his arms with a slow, mechanical movement as if to test the condition of his muscles after the tremendous strain ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... that honor. I do not know but his reverence would have agreed with Scott's pirate-lieutenant, that it was better to live as plain Jack Bunce than die as Frederick Altamont; but I am very sure that he would rather have been kept prisoner to the close of the war, as a combatant, than have been released ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... arms, the church bells rang, the news flew round to every household in Quebec; and before the tops of the Surprise frigate were seen over the Point of Levy every battery was fully manned, every battalion was standing ready on the Grand Parade, and every non-combatant man, woman, and child was lining the seaward wall. The regulation shot was fired across her bows as she neared the city; whereupon she fired three guns to leeward, hoisted the private signal, and showed the Union Jack. Then, at last, a cheer ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... positive proof on the part of the accused; and in all these, which must have been exceedingly numerous in the early stages of European society, the combat was resorted to. From its decision there was no appeal. God was supposed to nerve the arm of the combatant whose cause was just, and to grant him the victory over his opponent. As Montesquieu well remarks,[51] this belief was not unnatural among a people just emerging from barbarism. Their manners being wholly warlike, the man deficient ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... frigates having, some time before, come by the wind—the Englishman a little on the Frenchman's weather-quarter. As is usual, in a heavy cannonade and a moderate breeze, the wind had died away, or become neutralized, by the concussions of the guns, and neither combatant moved much from the position he occupied. Still the Briton had her yards knowingly braced, while those of her enemy were pretty much at sixes and sevens. Under such circumstances, it was not difficult to predict the result of the engagement; more especially as ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... last struggle, however, like a fresh combatant attacking an exhausted athlete, Telesinus the Samnite was very near tripping up Sulla and laying him prostrate at the gates of Rome. Telesinus was hastening with Lamponius the Lucanian and a strong force to Praeneste, in order to rescue Marius, who was besieged; ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... alive and that nothing had cracked or whistled overhead, I took another look and then remained standing. I had been considering myself altogether too important a mortal. German guns and snipers were not going to waste ammunition on a non-combatant on the skyline when they had an overwhelming number of belligerent targets. A few shrapnel breaking remotely were all that we had to bother us, and these were sparingly sent with the palpable message, "We'll let you fellows in the rear know what we would do to you ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... (chiefly Mauesers), the remainder carrying bowie-knives and bamboo lances. The bowie-knife was irresistible by the Spaniards when the native came to close-quarter fighting. The rebels had ample supplies of rice, buffaloes, etc., stolen from the non-combatant natives. To my personal knowledge they had daily communication with Manila, and knew everything that was going on there and the public feeling in the capital. They had failed in the attempt to seize the town of Santa Cruz (La Laguna), ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... was trembling with tenderness. He was speaking to the tanned and robust combatant in the same tone that he was wont to use twenty years ago when, holding the child by the hand, he had halted before the preserve ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... replied Harry Herndon, curtly. "All you have to do is to hold on to the pommel of your saddle. There is a non-combatant here who ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris

... railway station to see if we could get places for Wilmington. We found that the line was in the hands of the Southerners, and that although the 'boys in blue' had a vulgar habit of firing into the carriages as they passed, the trains were running each night. But a train running and a non-combatant passenger getting a place in a carriage were widely different things, every available seat being taken up by sick and wounded soldiers. I made a frantic effort to get into the train somehow, and after a severe struggle succeeded in scrambling ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha

... are a non-combatant, and that is better than I could have expected. You English as a rule are singularly averse to our propaganda. But wait and see how affairs ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... summoned all his skill for a second encounter; while Adrian, aware of the great superiority of his charger, resolved to bring it to bear against his opponent. Accordingly, when the Knights again rushed forward, Adrian, covering himself well with his buckler, directed his care less against the combatant, whom he felt no lance wielded by mortal hand was likely to dislodge, than against the less noble animal he bestrode. The shock of Montreal's charge was like an avalanche—his lance shivered into a thousand pieces, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... a-laughing. The third knight disdained to make use of his lance; but, making a pass at him, took him by the right leg and, wheeling him half round, laid him prostrate on the sand. The squires of the game ran to him laughing, and replaced him in his saddle. The fourth combatant took him by the left leg, and tumbled him down on the other side. He was conducted back with scornful shouts to his tent, where, according to the law, he was to pass the night; and as he limped along with great difficulty ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... with a light heart, and matched the Ancients in defending them for the amusement of his patron. His incidental argument between the Spider and the Bee has provided a catch-phrase, "Sweetness and Light," to a combatant ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift

... our conflict, neither my brother nor myself had remarked a stout, square-built man, mounted on an uneasy horse, who sat quietly in his saddle as spectator of the battle, and, in fact, as the sole non-combatant present. This man, however, had been observed by O., both before and after his own brilliant charge; and, by the description, there could be no doubt that it had been our guardian B., as also, by the description of the horse, we ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... to commit himself much, nor do I believe that he was a violent partisan either way. On one point he was very decided: Falkland himself could not have wished more devoutly for the termination of a fatal civil war—fatal, he said, to the interests, present and future, of both the combatant powers—ruinous to every class, with two exceptions; the adventurers who, having little to lose, gained, by joining the ranks of either army, a social position to which they could not otherwise have aspired; and the speculators, who, directly or indirectly, fairly or unfairly, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... when they heard themselves called by name. A feeble voice close by said to them, "Jeanty Sarre! Charpentier!" They turned round and saw one of their men who was dying leaning against a wall, and his knees giving way beneath him. He was a combatant who had left the barricade. He had only been able to take a few steps down the street. He held his hand over his breast, where he had received a ball fired at close quarters. He said to them in a scarcely audible voice, "The barricade is taken, ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... by their armour and manner of fighting. Some were called Secutores, whose arms were a helmet, a shield, a sword, or a leaden ball. Others, the usual antagonists of the former, were named Retiarii. A combatant of this class was dressed in a short tunic, but wore nothing on his head. He carried in his left hand a three-pointed lance, called Tridens or Fuscina, and in his right, a net, with which he attempted to ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... is required to be said. He aspired to be considered the leading champion of the Church, and the most successful combatant against the Satanic powers. He seems to have longed for an opportunity to signalize himself in this particular kind of warfare; seized upon every occurrence that would admit of such a coloring to represent it as the result of diabolical agency; ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... both proof and valiant, And virtuous, a vassal combatant. Upon the way there, he has met Rollant; He'd never seen, yet knew him at a glance, By the proud face and those fine limbs he had, By his regard, and by his contenance; He could not help but he grew faint thereat, He ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous

... prisoner all through the war, so he never got no enjoyment out of his life, never seeing a bit of real fighting—just marching and drilling and prison. So that, as he said, he might just as well never 'a' run away,—seeing he had to bide a non-combatant, which is the same as Quaker, ...
— W. A. G.'s Tale • Margaret Turnbull

... Bulloch, a member of an old Southern family, one of her ancestors having been the first Governor of Georgia. During the Civil War, while Mr. Roosevelt was busy raising regiments, supporting the Sanitary Commission, and doing whatever a non-combatant patriot could do to uphold the Union, Mrs. Roosevelt's heart allegiance went with the South, and to the end of her life she was never "reconstructed." But this conflict of loyalties caused no discord in the Roosevelt family circle. Her two brothers ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... in appointment fresh and fair, Anticipating time with starting courage. Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy, Thou dreadful Ajax, that the appalled air May pierce the head of the great combatant, And hale ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]

... quarrel is envenomed by private injuries, a blow that is not mortal or decisive can be productive only of a short truce, which allows the unsuccessful combatant to sharpen his arms for a new encounter. The strength of Alboin had been found unequal to the gratification of his love, ambition, and revenge: he condescended to implore the formidable aid of the chagan; and the arguments ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... retardation of unborn infants and young children). Since heavy radiation doses of about 20 roentgen or more (see "Radioactivity" note) are necessary to produce developmental defects, these effects would probably be confined to areas of heavy local fallout in the nuclear combatant nations and would not become a ...
— Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War: Some Perspectives • United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

... Heroes, &c.] The young Spaniards signalize their valour before the Spanish ladies at bull feasts, which often prove very hazardous, and sometimes fatal to them. It is performed by attacking of a wild bull, kept on purpose, and let loose at the combatant; and he that kills most, carries the laurel, and dwells ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... telling me to-night a long story of machinations against him in the club; the perspicacity with which he detected them, the odious repartees he made, the effective counter-checks he applied. "I was always a combatant," he says, with a leering gaiety. Then the next moment he is girding at the whole crew for their stupidity, their ingratitude, their malignity; and it never seems to cross his mind that he can be, or has been in the smallest degree, to blame. It distressed me profoundly, and my mind and ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... becomes us to be modest and cautious in calling all true friends of God to rank themselves with us. But where the issue is between foul wrong and plain right, between palpable idolatry, error, or unbridled lust, and truth, purity, and righteousness, the Christian combatant for these is entitled to send round the fiery cross, and proclaim a crusade in God's name. There will always be plenty of people with cold water to pour on enthusiasm. We should be all the better for a few more, who would venture to feel that they are fighting for ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... Chicago, and turned over to the Provost Marshal of the District of Columbia. On July 2, the President appointed a military commission to try them for violation of the laws of war, to wit: for not wearing fixed emblems to indicate their combatant status. In the midst of the trial, the accused petitioned the Supreme Court and the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for leave to bring habeas corpus proceedings. Their argument embraced the contentions: (1) that ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... the aspect of the contest in the Netherlands was not that of ordinary warfare. It was an encounter between two principles, in their nature so hostile to each other that the absolute destruction of one was the only, possible issue. As the fight went on, each individual combatant seemed inspired by direct personal malignity, and men found a pleasure in deeds of cruelty, from which generations not educated to slaughter recoil with horror. To murder defenceless prisoners; to drink, not metaphorically ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... at once sharpened the sympathies of both sides and gave them a practical purpose. England and France were now arrayed against each other, and Americans, though their Government remained neutral, arrayed themselves openly as partisans of either combatant. The division followed almost exactly the lines of the earlier quarrel which had begun to appear as the true meaning of Hamilton's policy discovered itself. The Hamiltonians were for England. The Jeffersonians ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... perfidious race." Over two thousand Welsh monks from the monastery of Bangor Iscoed were slain by the heathen invader; but Baeda explains that AEthelfrith put them to death because they prayed against him; a sentence which strongly suggests the idea that the English did not usually kill non-combatant Welshmen. ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... gentleman to give him such courteous comfort, gave him hearty thanks, with promise to pray for his happy success. With that Rosader vailed bonnet to the king, and lightly leaped within the lists, where noting more the company than the combatant, he cast his eye upon the troop of ladies that glistered there like the stars of heaven; but at last, Love, willing to make him as amorous as he was valiant, presented him with the sight of Rosalynde, whose admirable beauty so inveigled the eye of ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... Each combatant took a knife, examined it critically near the candle and tested the strength of the blade and handle across his lifted knee. Their persons were then searched in turn, each by the second of ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... is r-run up a three in th' outermost corner iv Hoar County, state iv Luzon. They'se rale shootin' in Kentucky, an' whin it begins ivrybody takes a hand. 'Tis th' on'y safe way. If ye thry to be an onlooker an' what they calls a non- combatant 'tis pretty sure ye'll be taken home to ye'er fam'ly lookin' like a cribbage-boord. So th' thing f'r ye to do is to be wan iv th' shooters ye'ersilf, load up ye'er gun an' whale away f'r ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne

... system of progressive instruction, while the recruiting must be carried on with still greater vigor. Every effort must be made to exalt the main function of the officer—the command of men. The leading graduates of the Naval Academy should be assigned to the combatant ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... one who shelters in a wood, for which we in English have no precise equivalent. It is used by an Italian to indicate one who runs, or is thought to run, less risk of death than the speaker. It is chiefly used of men in the non-combatant services or in posts well behind the fighting front, including the Higher Staff and especially the junior ranks attendant on them. It is used also in jest by Italian patrols going out at night into No Man's Land, of their comrades, whom they leave behind in the front line trenches. Personally I ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton

... which in a few days capitulated. Montereau and Melun were next besieged in succession, and each, after some resistance, was compelled to surrender. The latter siege lasted nearly four months, and during its continuance Henry fought a single combat with the governor in the mines, each combatant having his vizor down and being unknown to the other. The governor's name was Barbason, and he was one of those accused of complicity in the murder of the Duke of Orleans; but in consequence of this incident, Henry saved him from the capital punishment which he would otherwise ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... stationary. Owing to this circumstance, Mr. Wood's boat, impelled alike by oar and tide, shot past the mark at which it aimed; and before it could be again brought about, the struggle had terminated. For a few minutes, Darrell seemed to have the advantage in the conflict. Neither combatant could use his sword; and in strength the fugitive was evidently superior to his antagonist. The boat rocked violently with the struggle. Had it not been lashed to the adjoining wherry, it must have been upset, and have precipitated ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... aedile's wife with complacent importance, for she knew all the names and qualities of each combatant: "he is a retiarius or netter; he is armed only, you see, with a three-pronged spear like a trident, and a net; he wears no armor, only the fillet and the tunic. He is a mighty man, and is to fight with Sporus, yon ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... N. combatant; disputant, controversialist, polemic, litigant, belligerent; competitor, rival, corrival[obs3]; fighter, assailant; champion, Paladin; mosstrooper[obs3], swashbuckler fire eater, duelist, bully, bludgeon man, rough. prize fighter, pugilist, boxer, bruiser, the fancy, gladiator, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... late-returning husbands or lovers thrashed in their cups. But never had I felt myself so raised, so exhilarated, so blissfully happy, as in that room. My days slipped by in ecstasy; I felt myself consecrated a combatant in the service of the Highest. I used to test my body, in order to get it wholly under my control, ate as little as possible, slept as little as possible, lay many a night outside my bed on the bare floor, gradually to make myself as hardy as I required to be. I tried to crush ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... his is as tender as a baby's, and he is snuffed out by a blow that would hardly bewilder for a moment any other forest animal, unless it be the skunk, another sluggish non-combatant of our woodlands. Immunity from foes, from effort, from struggle is always purchased with ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs

... everywhere, villages peopled only by women and children, treacherous peacefulness on every side; this had been their encounter: an occasional rifle shot from the rice fields, a crackle of guns far ahead, a prisoner or two who had not been quick enough in transforming himself from combatant to friend, that was all. Now, there seemed to be real ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... successful combatant was, however, soon to be accomplished; for he was shortly after found drowned in a butt of water, from which he had once or twice been extricated before, having summoned a deliverer to his assistance by cries that told he was in distress. There was great lamentation when ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various

... stifled, but eager, as uttered by one engaged in deadly strife—when the cry, "Avenge me," rises from earth, God in heaven hears it well pleased. He delights when his people, hating the adversary of their souls, ask him for vengeance; and he will grant it. Long to the struggling combatant the battle seems to last, but speedily, according to God's just reckoning, the avenging stroke will fall. If there is delay it is but for a moment, and because this added moment of conflict will make the everlasting victory ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... with slender flanks is considered handsomer than one not framed in that manner, and the same quality also shows that he excels in swiftness. An athlete whose arms from exercise show a full spring and play of the muscles, is a beautiful sight, and he, likewise, is best fitted as a combatant. Thus the true species is never without its utility, as even a ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser

... naval officer's income in Russia is derived from the peculation of government stores. To carry on this lucrative system of plunder there is always a good understanding between officials of the Stores Department and the combatant officers. ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward

... buttresses separate these [warriors], and, for them, each smote the well-rounded ox-hide shields around each other's breasts, and the light bucklers of each other. And many were wounded upon the body with the merciless brass, whether the back of any combatant, averted, was laid bare, and many right through the shield itself. Everywhere the towers and buttresses were sprinkled, on both sides, with the blood of heroes, from the Trojans and the Greeks. Yet not ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... This set us to thinking. After our scornful rejection of the proposition to enlist in the Rebel army, the Rebels had felt around among us considerably as to how we were disposed toward taking what was called the "Non-Combatant's Oath;" that is, the swearing not to take up arms against the Southern Confederacy again during the war. To the most of us this seemed only a little less dishonorable than joining the Rebel army. We held that ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... at war with a neighbouring tribe, and a fringe of hills only, divided the combatant parties, but an interval was called in their operations by mutual consent to allow of the passage of the British through their respective countries. On leaving behind the outposts of one, the outposts of the ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson

... that Lieutenant Carey did not understand the position in which he stood towards the Prince, and, as a consequence, failed to estimate aright the responsibility which fell to his lot. Colonel Harrison states that the senior combatant officer, Lieutenant Carey, D.A.Q.M.G., was, as a matter of course, in charge of the party, whilst, on the other hand, Carey says, when alluding to the escort, 'I did not consider I had any authority over it after the precise ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... binding on us all, in the measure of our opportunity and capacity. Our performing the indirect is no excuse for our neglecting the direct. The conversion of the world is our business and not to be handed over to any society or missionary. No Christian can be only and always a non-combatant, without sin and loss. He is bound to take some share in the actual conflict in one or ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... story-telling. At 17 he was apprenticed to a stonemason, and his work in quarries, together with rambles among the rocks of his native shore, led him to the study of geology. In 1829 he pub. a vol. of poems, and soon afterwards threw himself as an ardent and effective combatant into the controversies, first of the Reform Bill, and thereafter of the Scottish Church question. In 1834 he became accountant in one of the local banks, and in the next year brought out his Scenes and Legends ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... few hundred yards from where we were standing, had fired on two peasant women working there, and then galloped off. Everywhere we went we heard stories of peaceful peasants being fired on. It seems hard to believe, but the stories are terribly persistent. There may be some sniping by the non-combatant population, but the authorities are doing everything they can to prevent it, by requiring them to give up their arms and pointing out ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... Gleim maintain so high a rank among German poems, because they arose with and in the achievements which are their subject; and because, moreover, their felicitous form, just as if a fellow-combatant had produced them in the loftiest moments, makes us feel the ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



Words linked to "Combatant" :   someone, combat, grappler, military, butter, victor, pugilist, street fighter, somebody, skirmisher, hell-rooster, mortal, gamecock, hell-kite, mauler, defender, person, wrestler, soul, battler, gouger, gladiator, individual, matman, belligerent, brawler, tough, withstander, fighter, fencer, master, boxer, swordsman, superior



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