Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Dagger   /dˈægər/   Listen
Dagger

noun
1.
A short knife with a pointed blade used for piercing or stabbing.  Synonym: sticker.
2.
A character used in printing to indicate a cross reference or footnote.  Synonym: obelisk.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Dagger" Quotes from Famous Books



... Resting on her hind-legs and on the tips of her unfurled wings, she proudly occupies an erect attitude, with the Bee held facing her between her four front legs. To give the poor thing a position suited to receive the dagger-stroke, she turns her round and back again with the rough clumsiness of a child handling its doll. Her pose is magnificent to look at. Solidly planted on her sustaining tripod, the two hinder tarsi and the ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... old brother George heard much talk of Border Ruffians, and he went around flourishing a long thorn for a dagger, and boasting in childish accent: "Bad Border 'uffians s'an't get my pa. I hit 'em in 'e eye wid my dagger." One day I was helping uncle drop corn, when George came running to us, much excited. "I foun' a Border 'uffian! I foun' a Border 'uffian! I hit 'em in 'e eye! I hit 'em in 'e eye!" We ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... plat,* *flatly, plainly That vengeance shall not parte from his house, That of his oathes is outrageous. "By Godde's precious heart, and by his nails, And by the blood of Christ, that is in Hailes, Seven is my chance, and thine is cinque and trey: By Godde's armes, if thou falsely play, This dagger shall throughout thine hearte go." This fruit comes of the *bicched bones two,* *two cursed bones (dice)* Forswearing, ire, falseness, and homicide. Now, for the love of Christ that for us died, Leave your oathes, bothe great and smale. But, Sirs, now ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... listening for his irregular recurrence with every nerve on the quiver. If he delayed by ever so little, it was an agony; yet when he did pipe up, his feeble strain struck to my heart cold and paralysing like a dagger. And with every advancing minute of the night I became broader awake, more tense, fairly sweating with nervousness. One night—good God, was it only last week? ... it seems ages ago, another existence ... a state cut off from this by the wonder of a transmigration, at ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... was mine. Everybody knows it. It is an old dagger that has always lain on a table in the drawing room at the ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... moments he returned with me. By his direction, I gave your father brandy and other restoratives, while he cut open his coat to find out, if he could, the nature of the wound. It was easily discovered. He had been stabbed by a long dagger just below the heart. Had the dagger entered one-sixteenth of an inch higher, he must have bled to death upon ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... which remains unmentioned, but which is possibly internal. He is first displayed "pacing a sombre avenue of ilex and arbutus that reflected with singular truth the gloom of his countenance," and "toying sadly with the jewelled hilt of his dagger." He meditates upon his loveless life and the burthen of riches. Presently he "paces the long and magnificent gallery," where a "hundred generations of Di Sornos, each with the same flashing eye and the ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... project of killing General Kleber. They sought to dissuade him from it, but without informing the French. On the 14th of June, as the general was walking in his garden with the architect of the army, Suleiman presented himself before him, pretending to ask alms, and struck him several times with his dagger. The architect was wounded in striving to defend Kleber. When the soldiers came hurrying up the general had already breathed his last. The assassin made no attempt to flee; he expired under torture. At Cairo, and ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... Darius is scarce worth notice, save that Iniquity with his wooden dagger has a leading part in the action. He, together with Importunity and Partiality, has several contests with Equity, Charity, and Constancy: for a while he has the better of them; but at last they ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... the ground, apparently lifeless, chuckled with delight, and, releasing the chain that bound his leg, bent over him with the intention of carrying his body into the burial vault near the moat. But a suspicion crossed his mind, and he drew his dagger, determined to make sure that his prisoner had passed away. As he did so, the young esquire sprang to his feet, and wrested the poniard from his grasp. In another second Nightgall was lying chained to the floor, where his prisoner ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... of sword or dagger, Cockt hat or ringlets of Geramb; Tho' Peers may laugh and Papists swagger, He doesn't care one ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... Burnside, a decent young man enough, and one obviously qualifying to be the hero of the story. So that when, quite early in its course, Germaine caught him asleep and apparently left him dead with a dagger in his heart, I was for a little time considerably puzzled as to how Mrs. BAILLIE REYNOLDS was going to get on with her tale. However, I need not have worried. Of course Miles was not dead; indeed the last six words of the book tell you that "His smile was good to see." And ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various

... of white (top, double width), red, and green (double width) with a broad, vertical, red band on the hoist side; the national emblem (a khanjar dagger in its sheath superimposed on two crossed swords in scabbards) in white is centered at the top ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... her; upon the woman only her eyes were fixed, for there was the piercing scrutiny, the quick divination, the merciless censure—there, if anywhere, in one of her own sex. From men she might expect tolerance, justice; from women only a swift choice between the bowl and the dagger. Pride prompted her to hardihood, and when she had well looked upon Mrs. Liversedge's face a soothing confidence came to the support of desperation. She saw the frank fairness of Denzil's lineaments softened with the kindest of ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing

... and tried to light another candle with the one I held, but I found that my hand was so unsteady that I could not keep the wicks together. It was my intention to again search for this strange dagger which had been used to kill both the English boy and the beautiful princess, but before I could light the second candle I heard footsteps descending the stairs, and the Russian servant ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis

... as if it had been an infant's; and, as she walked away, he heard her laugh with a degree of savage bitterness that stabbed his generous heart like a dagger; while behind her trailed ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... death, and then you'll canonise me perhaps? Ah, you have the plague, and you would give it to me. Go somewhere else, you brainless priest. Ah! touch me not," said she, seeing him about to advance, "or I will stab you with this dagger." ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... at the factory fail in the computer room: the computrons there have been all used up by the other hardware. (This theory probably owes something to the "Warlock" stories by Larry Niven, the best known being "What Good is a Glass Dagger?", in which magic is fueled by an exhaustible natural resource ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... father to daughter, and smiled. "Pardi!" said he. "I am between bludgeon and dagger. If I escape with my life, I shall be fortunate. Why, then, since you pin me to the very wall, I'll tell you what I should do. I should go back to the original and help myself more freely ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... again to Glendinning, commanding him to say what next chanced, and not to omit any particular. When he mentioned the manner in which Julian had cast from him his concubine, Murray drew a deep breath, set his teeth hard, and laid his hand on the hilt of his dagger. Casting his eyes once more around the circle, which was now augmented by one or two of the reformed preachers, he seemed to devour his rage in silence, and again commanded Halbert to proceed. When he came to describe how Warden had been dragged ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... light. When it was done, the murderer stole into the dungeon, to gloat on the agonies of his victim, ere he gave the death-blow. Then, while the prisoner is waked to reason by that sight, and Fidelio throws herself before the uplifted dagger, rescuing her husband with the courage which love gives to a woman's heart, the storm of feeling which has been gathering in the music, swells to a height beyond which it seemed impossible for the soul to pass. My nerves were thrilled till I could bear no more. A mist seemed to come ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... reeling 'neath the stroke And dagger-thrust of many a friend, Drew o'er his face his Roman cloak, To meet, unseen, his tragic end, So hath this desert-monarch tried With noble dignity to hide From others how and where ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard

... lantern and a pickaxe. He went to an alcove walled with plaster and picked at it with the axe. The plaster fell away. On the floor of the alcove lay two crumpled bodies of men long dead; the clothes were rotting upon the bones and a dagger ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... four feet high; and he's horridly savage. If you came in here without father or me or some of the workmen who know him, Alonzo would begin to dance at you, flapping his wings, every plume erect; and if you didn't run he'd attack you. That big, dagger-like bill of his ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... terrible one, but the people of Rochelle were brave, and had no thought of flinching. They chose the mayor, Guiton, for their commander, and when he accepted the office he laid his dagger on the table, saying: "I will thrust that dagger into the heart of the first man who speaks of giving up the town." He then went to work to defend the place. He strengthened the works, and made soldiers of all the men in the city, and all the boys, too, for that matter. Everybody who could handle ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston

... into which he had been driven. It involved too monstrous an impossibility to seem to him to be an outlet at all. What was the real meaning of all this? Then suddenly an in-rushing suspicion flashed across his mind like a blasting lightning brand, bringing with it a sharp pang, as of a dagger stab in the heart. What was the meaning of all these protestations of admiration and affection, coupled with a denial of all that his passion drove him there in search of? Did it perchance mean that this woman, so terrible in the power of her beauty, so dangerously ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... brought with me a fine fish, caught that morning from the rocks, which I had sealed and cleaned with my dagger-knife, and I now toasted it over the hot coals, after which I enjoyed the most satisfying meal I had tasted since I had been cast upon the island. I induced Melannie to eat some of the fish, which she found so much to her liking ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... below a figure rose up to receive him with a grip like iron. Billy's right arm was doubled at his side; the blade of that villainous old dagger was pressed against the yielding softness of the fellow's sash, but for the life of him Billy could not drive home that knife against the human flesh. With a convulsive movement he tore himself from those gorilla arms and sent up a desperate ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... time. There was behind them a strong and compact Body of Figures. The Genius of Heroic Poetry appeared with a Sword in her Hand, and a Lawrel on her Head. Tragedy was crowned with Cypress, and covered with Robes dipped in Blood. Satyr had Smiles in her Look, and a Dagger under her Garment. Rhetorick was known by her Thunderbolt; and Comedy by her Mask. After several other Figures, Epigram marched up in the Rear, who had been posted there at the Beginning of the Expedition, that he might not revolt ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... beloved brother, in whose path the gallows loomed. It was that picture which had caused her to yield to McTurpin. Even darker, now, was the picture of her own future. A gambler's wife! Her hand sought a jewelled dagger which she always carried in her coiffure. Her fingers closed about the hilt with a certain solace. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... when contrasted with the fiery feuds, the almost daily revolutions, the restless succession of families and parties in power, which fill the annals of the other states of Italy. That rivalship should sometimes be ended by the dagger, or enmity conducted to its ends under the mask of law, could not but be anticipated where the fierce Italian spirit was subjected to so severe a restraint: it is much that jealousy appears usually commingled with illegitimate ambition, and that, for every instance in which ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... to the Convention, and on June 14, 1794, the Jacobins struck his name from the list of the club. When Fleurus was fought Therezia lay in La Force, daily expecting death, while Tallien had become the soul of the reactionary party. On the 8 Thermidor (July 26,1794) Tallien received a dagger wrapped in a note signed by Therezia,—"To-morrow they kill me. Are you then only ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... of setting this colossal stage for death, the entire peasant population had been mobilized to assist the soldiers. In self-defense Belgium was thus obliged to drive the dagger deep into her own bosom. It seemed indeed as if she suffered as much at her own hands, as at the hands of the enemy. To arrest the advancing scourge she impressed into her service dynamite, fire and flood. I saw the sluice-gates ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... more wicked and more cunning than himself. He travelled to China to avenge his brother's death, and went to visit a pious woman called Fatima, thinking she might be of use to him. He entered her cell and clapped a dagger to her breast, telling her to rise and do his bidding on pain of death. He changed clothes with her, coloured his face like hers, put on her veil, and murdered her, that she might tell no tales. Then he went towards the palace ...
— Aladdin and the Magic Lamp • Unknown

... wife, and a splendid woman. It was she, you remember, who sucked the wound when he was stabbed with a poisoned dagger. She died somewhere in the north, and he had the body carried south to bury it in Westminster Abbey. Wherever it rested for a night he built a cross, and so you have a line of crosses all down England to show where that sad ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle

... another, and out of the Eternal comes a particle of the Divine Energy that makes these cells its home. Growth follows, cell is added to cell, and there develops a man—a man whose body, two-thirds water, can be emptied by a single dagger-thrust and the spirit given ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... to learn is a much greater thing than to be crammed," said Carey. "Of course when one begins to teach oneself, the world has become "mine oyster," and one has the dagger. The point becomes how ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and holds it out to him.] Catiline, plunge this dagger in my bosom;— Straight through the heart! ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen

... should make such a fuss about cracking off their birding-pieces at a mark which any woman or boy could hit at a day's practice? If Captain Popinjay now, or any of his troop, would try a bout, either with the broadsword, backsword, single rapier, or rapier and dagger, for a gold noble, the first-drawn blood, there would be some soul in it,—or, zounds, would the bumpkins but wrestle, or pitch the bar, or putt the stone, or throw the axle-tree, if (touching the end of Morton's sword ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... what was left. Honour can survive a wound; it can live and thrive without a member. The man rebounds from his disgrace; he begins fresh foundations on the ruins of the old; and when his sword is broken, he will do valiantly with his dagger. So it is with Fouquet in the book; so it was with Dumas on ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that the threat of the Spaniard was not an empty one, and that he would not hesitate to plunge his dagger into the young sailor's breast in case the slightest resistance was attempted, or the least ...
— Young Glory and the Spanish Cruiser - A Brave Fight Against Odds • Walter Fenton Mott

... a gigantic statue of the Buddha before which a wall has been built and also that the image of Jagannatha, which is little more than a log of wood, is really a case enclosing a Buddhist relic. King Prataparudra ({DAGGER} 1529) persecuted Buddhism, which implies that at this late date its adherents were sufficiently numerous to attract attention. Either at the beginning of his reign or before it there flourished a group of six poets of whom the principal ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... on a barbed wire fence. Yet, it is claimed that certain of his enemies, like the leopard, know his one great weakness—a terror of being wet—and often make him uncoil by rolling him into the water. His coat of hard covering is really compact masses of hardened hair drawn out to sharp dagger points, and might be likened to pine cones endued with power. Through ages of experience, the scaly ant-eater has learned that even his powerful coat of protection is not altogether a success in life's ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... high-handed usurpation. He was aided in his designs by Lepidus, one of Caesar's old lieutenants. Very soon he was exercising all the powers of a real dictator. "The tyrant is dead," said Cicero, "but the tyranny still lives." This was a bitter commentary upon the words of Brutus, who, as he drew his dagger from the body of Caesar, turned to Cicero, and exclaimed, "Rejoice, O Father of your Country, for Rome is free." Rome could not be free, the republic could not be reestablished because the old love for virtue and liberty had died out from among the people—had been ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... Henry VIII., in which that stalwart monarch is depicted in regal state, with all the "pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious (mimic) war." In the gallery over the library are to be seen the sword and dagger which belonged to the unfortunate James of Scotland, that chivalrous king who died fighting to the last on the hill at Flodden. The sword-hilt has been enamelled, and still shows traces of gilding which has once been red-wet with the Southron's blood; and the dagger is ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... to where the Queen was bound to the stake; and he cut her bonds with his dagger and set her free. And he said: "Lady, thou art free; now go thy way, and may God forgive thee as I do." Then the Queen wept also, and said, "Tristram, thou art very good to me." And because she was barefoot and in her shift, Tristram took his cloak ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle

... Marcus Junius Brutus, who stood forth in the cause of liberty, and delivered his country from the usurpation of Julius Caesar. Cicero describes him in that great tragic scene, brandishing his bloody dagger, and calling on Cicero by name, to tell him that his country was free. Caesare interfecto, statim cruentum alte extollens Marcus Brutus pugionem, Ciceronem nominatim exclamavit, atque ei recuperatam libertatem ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... a still narrower escape. One day while performing at a museum on Clark Street, Victorina passed a long thin dagger down her throat. In withdrawing it, the blade snapped in two, leaving the pointed portion some distance in the passage. The woman nearly fainted when she realized what had occurred, but, by a masterful effort, controlled her feelings. ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... word oath passed through his soul like a dagger. He felt as if he must throw himself down and hide his face from all those spying eyes which ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann

... stairs, had heard and seen it all. She stood still for a moment at the foot of the stairway, giving Mr. Dinsmore a look that, had it been a dagger, would have stabbed him to the heart, but which he did not see; then, just as the tea-bell rang, turned ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley

... the bolt was withdrawn, and two men entered, with manacles in their hands. They attempted to seize me, telling me I was the prisoner of King Edward. I did not listen further, but wounding one with my dagger, felled the other to the ground; and darting past him, made my way through what passages I cannot tell, till I found myself in a street leading from behind the governor's house. I ran against some one as I rushed ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... door was closed but unlocked, as he found after repeated knockings. Lorenz was lying on the bed, undressed and covered with blood. The horrified duke made a hasty examination and found that he was dead. A dagger had been driven to his heart as he slept. The hotel was aroused, the police called, and the excitement was at its highest pitch when the two friends came from their room ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... Shape so little correspondent to his Face: His Head was bald, and all the rest of his Limbs appeared old and deformed. On the hinder Part of his Mantle was represented Murder with dishevelled Hair and a Dagger all bloody, Anger in a Robe of Scarlet, and Suspicion squinting with both Eyes; but above all the most conspicuous was the Battel of the Lapithae and the Centaurs. I detested so hideous a Shape, and turned my Eyes upon Saturn, who was stealing away behind him ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... twilight hour, the vision was so like the picture of a "Seraglio Tragedy," some fragment of a Delacroix or Decamps floating up into the drowsy brain, that I almost fancied I had seen the ghosts of Ba-Ahmed's executioners revisiting with dagger and bowstring the scene of ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton

... and making a tremendous effort, swung himself into a branch, cocking his little bandy legs over it to keep them out of reach, for the tiger's red panting mouth and gleaming white teeth were within half an inch of his toes. In doing so, his dagger fell out of its sheath, and went pop into the tiger's wide-open mouth, and thus point foremost down into its stomach, so ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel

... life he found himself under the scanty shade of a mimosa tree, supported by the strong arm of a man whose sun-burned face and flowing beard, the loose robe which he wore, and the silk scarf which surrounded his tarboosh, with the pistol and dagger thrust into a shawl round his waist, seemed to betoken a native of the country; but the kindly eyes were those of an Englishman, as were the murmured words, "Poor lad! Poor lad!" which fell on his ear. His brow was deliciously cool, and his throat less parched; and he recognised ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... rare disease following his or her footsteps with the keenness of a beagle, through the streets and lanes of a crowded city, while the scores that cross the same paths on the same errands know it only by name. It is a series of similar coincidences which has led us to consider the dagger, the musket, and certain innocent-looking white powders as having some little claim to be regarded as dangerous. It is the practical inattention to similar coincidences which has given rise to the unpleasant but often necessary documents called indictments, which has sharpened a form of the ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... and Gianni lying asleep and naked in each other's arms; whereas he was of a sudden furiously incensed and flamed up into such a passion of wrath that it lacked of little but he had, without saying a word, slain them both then and there with a dagger he had by his side. However, esteeming it a very base thing of any man, much more a king, to slay two naked folk in their sleep, he contained himself and determined to put them to death in public and by ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... with my dagger keen, I'll take my life; it must be so. Meet me in hell to-night, my queen, ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various

... them for me, Norn," she said, taking a glass of sherbet from the flower-wreathed tray of the charming slave. "I wish I wasn't such an alarmist. I felt as frantic as though Doris Leighton had drawn a dagger, and now I can see ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... noise and Patsy turned his head to observe him. Then Patsy made a careless and rather loud comment to his two friends. He used a word which is no more than passing the time of day down in Cherry Street, but to the Cuban it was a dagger-point. There was a harsh scraping sound as a chair was ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... pike, played with the two-handed sword, with the back sword, with the Spanish tuck, the dagger, poniard, armed, unarmed, with a buckler, with a cloak, with a target. Then would he hunt the hart, the roebuck, the bear, the fallow deer, the wild boar, the hare, the pheasant, the partridge, and the bustard. He played at the great ball, and made it bound in the air, both with fist and foot. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... might be so again, he should be incapable of the function; that he unceasingly said this to himself, and that yet with all this he could not console himself for having been so no longer during the many years since he had lost his post; that he had never been able to draw the dagger from his heart; that everything which recalled the memory of the past made him beside himself, and that to hear that his wife was going to take Madame de Poitiers to see a review of the body-guards, in which he now counted for nothing, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... could we have wondered if the tiger spirit of this fiery people had broken out in bloody feuds and deadly quarrels; and that they had sought to rid themselves in any way of their invaders? But it is cowardly nations only, those who dare not wield the sword, that revenge themselves with the lurking dagger. There were no assassinations in Paris. The French had fought valiantly, desperately, in the field; but, when valor was no longer of avail, they submitted like gallant men to a fate they could not withstand. Some instances ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... ran to a small collection of arms and snatched up a dagger. But scarcely had he done so when he let it fall again and stared like a madman at ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... dungeon where her prisoners, Philip and Eurydice, were confined, and caused Philip to be stabbed to death with daggers; and then, when this horrid scene was scarcely over, an executioner came in to Eurydice with a dagger, a rope, and a cup of poison, saying that Olympias sent them to her, that she might choose herself by what she would die. Eurydice, on receiving this message, replied, saying, "I pray Heaven that Olympias herself ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... profusion, beaten into masks for the faces of the dead (perhaps to protect them from the evil eye), into head-bands, breast-pieces, plaques of all shapes and sizes, and wrought into bracelets, rings, pins, baldrics, and dagger and sword hilts. Along with the gold was store of wrought ivory, amber, silver, bronze, and alabaster. One grave alone contained no fewer than sixty swords and daggers; another, in which women only ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie

... name of an Indian who probably did fall a victim to his friendship to the Spaniards. This name, as a sort of guarantee for the rest of his story, the native scribe inserted in place of the genuine one. The peculiarity of the figure is that it has an arrow or dagger driven into its eye. Not only is this mentioned by Cogolludo's informant, but it is represented in the paintings in both the "Books of Chilan Balam" above noted, and also, by a fortunate coincidence, in one of the calendar-pages of the ...
— The Books of Chilan Balam, the Prophetic and Historic Records of the Mayas of Yucatan • Daniel G. Brinton

... myself in this search for raiment, rummaging amongst the heaps and bales, with a hand and eye little skilled in such business, I heard a sound behind which caused me to turn my head, and there was the woman with a dagger she had picked from the floor, in the act of drawing it from ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... their arrival, Thibault omitted no act of tenderness, to convince the Princess she was still as dear to him as ever; but finding all his protestations in vain, and that she concealed a dagger in the bed one night with an intent to assassinate him, he took a separate apartment, still endeavouring by his behaviour to her, to prevent the public from finding out the cause of their disagreement; and he was ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown

... what it was I knew not. She drew herself back, as from something poisonous or revolting, and the expression of her face became terrible. At the same time her right hand went swiftly to the masses of her sable hair, and as swiftly back again, armed with the small, narrow dagger which these women wear by way of hair-pin. Before the unhappy creature who had accosted her knew what was happening, she thrust the dagger, with a powerful movement—while her white teeth showed, set edge to edge, through her drawn lips—deep into his body. As he collapsed forward she drew the weapon ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... pulso pulse, firmness of hand; a —— with the strength of the hand. punta point. punto point, place; stitch; instant. punzar to prick. punada fisticuff, blow. punado handful; punadillo (dim.). punal m. dagger. punetazo blow with the fist. puno fist. purgar to purge, expiate. puro pure. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... the fool of the old moralities, with his dagger of lath, a long coat, and a cap with a pair of ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... the dagger-scene, which was put on the stage in a most novel manner. A sheet had been pinned from the top of the room, on one side of which stood a boy with a broken dinner-knife, the handle end of which he was pushing through ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... to marry him. Tacitus, the Roman historian, says[1] that "with all manner of cruelty he exercised royal functions in the spirit of a slave." Under his rapacious tyranny the people were goaded to fury. Bands of assassins, Sicarii (so called by both Romans and Jews because of the short dagger, sica, which they used), sprang up over the country. Now they struck down Romans and Romanizers, and now they were employed by the governor himself to put out of the way rich Jewish nobles whose possessions he coveted. From time ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich

... "call the lackeys." He had somewhat recovered, and stood upright while his valet buckled on his sword. He took from the table a polished dagger and placed it in his belt; he called for candles and bade the lackeys lead on. Janet was well-nigh distraught at this awful cloud of anger that was about to break forth in the thunder of his tongue and stroke of sword. The steward of the household ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... Too bad. He's not what he used to be. It seems he's terribly dissipated—drinks. Yes, sir, like a fish. He had delirium tremens once behind the scenes in Philadelphia, and stabbed a scene shifter with his stage dagger. A bad lot, ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... long desperate looking knives, of English manufacture, with which every Portuguese peasant is usually furnished. This knife serves for many purposes, and I should consider it a far more efficient weapon than a dagger. "But," said he, "I do not place much confidence in the knife." I then inquired in what rested his hope of protection. "In this," said he: and unbuttoning his waistcoat, he showed me a small bag, attached to his neck by a silken string. "In this bag is an oracam, or prayer, written by ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... boy!" and, clutching a dagger, he motioned to leave the room, and would have done so to plunge it in the bosom of the lad, had not his informant interfered, and thus prevented him from executing so ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... a plausible excuse which won Clara's pardon and another enchanting smile, which pierced Ellis like a dagger. He knew very well that Delamere's excuse was a lie. Ellis himself had been ready as early as six o'clock, but judging this to be too early, had stopped in at the Clarendon Club for half an hour, to look over the ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... "you are lost to the world for some time. This indecent profession of opinion—What! a wooden cross as big as a dagger! Give it to me at once, and follow me to ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... with the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria in supporting the most stringent measures against all reformers. Sand was a theological student in the University of Jena, who thought he was doing God's service by removing from the earth with his assassin's dagger a vile wretch employed by the Russian tyrant to propagate views which mocked the loftiest aspirations of mankind. The murder of Kotzebue created an immense sensation throughout Europe, and was followed by increased rigor on the part of all despotic governments in muzzling the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... the student's huddled garb; his tunic was finely embroidered in many hues, his silken cloak had a great buckle of gold on the shoulder; he wore ornate shoes, and by his waist hung a silver-handled dagger in a sheath of chased bronze. He stepped lightly, as one who asks but the occasion to run and leap. In their intimate talk, he threw an arm over his companion's neck, a movement graceful as it was affectionate; his voice had ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... as he was returning from the theatre, the dagger did its usual work. Rome had lost a genius; in his place ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... when a report came in from the foot police station that a girl had been nearly murdered. She had been found in the backyard of a small house in a disreputable quarter of the city, with her throat cut and a dagger wound in her breast. The nature of the wound pointed to the attempted murder being the work of a foreigner, probably an Italian, of whom there was a considerable number at the railway camp. I at once ordered all ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... imagine our miser, our stingy old curmudgeon, in the greatest anguish, struggling between his love for his son and his love for his money. Those five hundred crowns that are asked of him are five hundred dagger-thrusts—ah! ah! ah! ah! He can't bring his mind to tear out, as it were, this sum from his heart, and his anguish makes him think of the most ridiculous means to find money for his son's ransom—ah! ah! ah! He wants to send the police into the open sea after the Turk's galley— ah! ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere

... an exclamation of pleasure. His purse contained but a few pieces of silver, and being without arms except for his short dagger, or means of locomotion, the difficulties of the journey down to Marseilles had sorely puzzled him. But with his good horse between his knees, and his suit of Milan armour on his back, he thought that he might make his way through ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... gone, but if he were still there she was determined to walk boldly over to his skulking-place and pretend she believed him to be a burglar or a foreign spy. In these days she carried a small pistol and a dagger. ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton

... dream, denotes threatening enemies. If you wrench the dagger from the hand of another, it denotes that you will be able to counteract the influence of ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... Lilburne, who for a brief space threatened the existence of the Parliamentary regime. Cromwell dealt with them with an iron hand. He caught and surprised them at Burford and imprisoned them in the church, wherein carved roughly on the font with a dagger you can see this touching memorial of one of ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... did not love Gay Liscannon any better for her score, but she would have disliked her in any case. Because she was no longer young herself, youth drove at her heart like a poisoned dagger. One of the few keen pleasures she had left in life was to bare her foils to the attack of some inexperienced girl, to match her wit and art and beauty against a fresh cheek and ingenuous heart, and prove to the world that victory ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... into the wan wake of an artificial moon, and lifted up a marvelous tenor voice in one of those weird folk-songs of the far-away that fairly tear the listener's heart out of his body—a song as sinisterly metallic as the hum of hate along a dagger-blade; a song as rapturously surprised at its own divinity as the first trill of a nightingale; a song of purling brooks and grim, gray mountain fortresses; a song of quick, sharp lights and long, low, lazy cadences; a song of love and hate; a song of all joys and all sorrows—and ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... the Trojan and the Grecian hosts. Uprose then Agamemnon, King of men, Uprose the sage Ulysses; to the front The heralds brought the off'rings to the Gods, And in the flagon mix'd the wine, and pour'd The hallowing water on the monarchs' hands. His dagger then the son of Atreus drew, Suspended, as was wont, beside the hilt Of his great sword; and from the victim's head He cut the sacred lock, which to the chiefs Of Troy and Greece the heralds portion'd out. Then with uplifted ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... said Eleanor, whose mind as regarded Mr Slope was almost bloodthirsty. 'Had I stabbed him with a dagger, he would have deserved it. But what will they say about it ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... East, a defenceless traveller in the tropical desert, surrounded by Thugs. He pointed to one particular spot where he saw his insidious foe—he described the dusky supple figure, the sinuous limbs, gliding serpent-like towards him, the oiled body, the dagger in the uplifted hand. An illustration in Sir Charles Bell's classic treatise had flashed into his brain. So, from memory to memory, with a frightful fertility of fancy, his unresting brain hurried on; while his wife could ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... to sleep, or perhaps go away, the science and the austere philosophy taught in these plays were enlivened by tavern scenes, and by the gambols of a clown, fool, or buffoon, called Vice, armed, as Harlequin, with a wooden dagger. And often, such is human frailty, the beholders went, remembering nothing but the mad pranks of Vice. It was in their eyes the most important character in the play, and the part was accordingly entrusted to the best actor. Shakespeare ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... to a great chest and fumbled among its contents. She drew out a dagger in a leather case, and unsheathed it. The light shone evilly scintillant upon the blade. She laughed, and hid it in the bosom of her gown, and fastened a cloak about her with impatient fingers. Then Matthiette crept down the winding stair that led to the gardens, and ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... spices and riches, he plundered them both, and tying the crew back to back threw them into the sea to drown. One of the Chinamen, while watching his companions being drowned, managed to get a hand free from his ropes, and, taking his dagger, stabbed Angria, but, missing his heart, only wounded him in the shoulder. To punish him the pirate had the skin cut off his back and then had him beaten with canes. Then lashing him firmly down to a raft he was thrown overboard. After drifting about for three days and ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... hand—a hand in the veins of which fire seemed to run so that the texture of the skin and the shape of the bones within were perceptible—in short a hand of glowing, fiery flesh clutching a short knife or dagger which also glowed with the same hellish, internal luminance, was advancing upon us where we stood—was ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... who, standing there, Seemed as an image of Despair, Which agony's convulsive strife, Had quickened into breathing life. The writhing lip, the brow all wet With Pain's cold, clammy, deathlike sweat; The hand, that with unconscious clasp, Strained his keen dagger in its grasp; The eye, that lightened with the blaze Of frenzied Passion's maniac gaze; The nervous, shuddering thrill, which came At intervals along his frame; The tremulously heaving breast,— These signs the inward storm confessed: Yet, through those signs of wo, there ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands

... The giant had strangled him in his own death-agonies. The younger had nearly hewn off the left leg of his enemy; and, grappled with in the act, had, while they rolled together on the earth, found for his dagger a passage betwixt the gorget and cuirass of the giant, and stabbed him mortally in the throat. The blood from the giant's throat was yet pouring over the hand of his foe, which still grasped the hilt of the dagger sheathed in the wound. They lay silent. I, the least worthy, ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... and by the loss of one eye. When asked by one of the English gentlemen present, with a tone of encouragement and familiarity, whether he could not still dispatch an enemy with his boneless arm, he drew a crooked dagger, or yambeah, from the girdle round his shirt, and placing his left hand, which was sound, to support the elbow of the right, which was the one that was wounded, he grasped the dagger firmly with his clenched fist, and drew it back ward and forward, twirling it at the same time, and saying ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... hym th[at] the male touched hym and he bade hym ryde forther and asked, why his bow was bent, and he said that was mater to hym, and the sayd deponent with I^d knyff [in another place it is called a dagger] which he had in his hand cut the bow string, bicause he rode soo nygh hym with horse that he had almost stroken hym downe; And forther he deposith that my lady light downe from hir horse hirself and said that, 'and she liffed, she would be avenged'; and thereupon Ric: Brampton ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... and die upon the ground sooner than yield. 'Then they won't come,' said George, 'and it's no use you having the table then. They will all go to the Hotel de l'Imperatrice.' This was a new house, the very mention of which was a dagger-thrust into the bosom of Madame Faragon. 'Then they will be poisoned,' she said. 'And let them! It is what they are fit for.' But the change was made, and for the first three days she would not come out of her room. When the bell was rung at the obnoxious hour, she stopped ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope

... and you will find yourself at length on an ill- smelling landing with a creaking ladder-like staircase in one corner, enveloped from top to bottom in darkness so profound that one can almost conjure up visions of sudden death from the assassin's dagger. After a moment's hesitation you commence to grope your way upwards: the staircase sways and creaks beneath your feet; the air is heavy with strange odours; something,—probably a cat—scuttles past you and nearly upsets ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... and were energetically beating back the approaching Teresiani. And then there occurred a tumult, such as can only occur among passionate Italians. Wild shouts, curses, and threats were heard—eyes sparkling with rage, doubled fists, and here and there a dagger ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... was riding on Across a fresh plough'd field—where once, they say, A mighty city stood in Pagan times— With Hapsburg's ancient turrets full in sight, That was the cradle of his princely race. When Duke John plunged a dagger in his throat, Palm ran him thro' the body with his lance, And Eschenbach, to end him, clove his skull; So down he sank, all weltering in his blood, On his own soil, by his own kinsmen slain. Those on the opposite bank beheld the deed, But, parted by the stream, could only raise An unavailing ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... shall not go," said Mr Burne decisively. "If you ask my advice, gentlemen, I should say, carry each of you a good revolver, a knife or dagger, a sword, and ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn

... beckoning phantom stretches toward the skies: He strives to follow, and the vision flies. This bold ferocious spirit, madly strong, Supporter of his country e'en to wrong, Impetuous to extremes, now longs to dart The point of vengeance into Christiern's heart: A whetted dagger in his hand display'd } He waves in air, and, o'er and o'er survey'd, } Smiles grimly ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... lost by Ravaillac's dagger can only be surmised, and when Henry, fatally stricken (1610), was carried dying into the Louvre, a cry of grief arose from Catholic and Protestant alike throughout the kingdom. After a reign of twenty-one years, the sagacious ruler, who had done more than any other to make the country ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... For no earthly consideration would I disturb her peace of mind; there is no sacrifice I would hesitate for a moment to make to friendship or virtue, but I cannot surely be called upon to plant a dagger in my own heart to destroy, for ever to destroy my own felicity without advantage to my friend. My attachment to L——, as you say, is involuntary, and my love as pure as it is fervent. I have reason to believe that his ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... itself in passions, in narrow ones in prejudices. The females in and out of petticoats who were here this afternoon experience the same thrill in expressing their dislike of me as a person foreign to their convention, as the Sicilian who plunges his dagger into a rival's bosom. When I am married, my son, I shall not live ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... the Bank-side, which he farmed out to the Dutch vrows, and which Wat had pulled down, I am inclined to suspect that private feeling first knocked down the saucy ribald, and then thrust him through and through with his dagger; and that there was as much of personal vengeance as patriotism, which crushed the demolisher ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... said the old woman, coming with her heavy, decided step to the parapet, and looking over, her keen black eyes gleaming like dagger-blades info the mist. "If there's anybody there," she said, "let them go away, and not be troubling honest women with any of their caterwauling. Come, Agnes," she said, pulling the girl by the sleeve, "you must be tired, my lamb! and your ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... the papers off the bench, broke the thread of his musings. As he stooped for them, he saw that one was an English journal some weeks old. His own name caught his eye—the name buried so utterly, whose utterance in the Sheik's tent had struck him like a dagger's thrust. The flickering light and darkness, as the awning waved to and fro, made the lines move dizzily upward and downward as he read—read the short paragraph touching the fortunes of the race ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... or a look, cause this veil of artifice to be thrown aside, and the primitive passion and fierceness behind it to start forth. He allowed himself to imagine, with a certain satisfaction, that were he to make this young woman jealous she would think nothing of thrusting a dagger between his ribs. Reality,—what a delight it is! The actual touch and feeling of the spontaneous natural creature have been so buried beneath centuries of hypocrisy and humbug that we have ceased to believe in them save as a metaphysical abstraction. ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne

... burst on the heroine's part, the Earl of Stafford half drew his dagger from the sheath as if to strike Joan, but the Earl of Warwick held him back. The visitors went out from the prison and handed ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Ghul is killed by a single blow from a magic dagger, which must not be repeated. (Cf. Nights, vii., p. 361.) In this story, too, the protection of a Ghulah is secured by tasting her milk, a point which we find in Spitta Bey's "Comes Arabes Modernes," but not in ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... was to be set on, Peter sprang forward and snatched the Scotchman's sword from the ground where it had fallen, at the same time dropping his staff and drawing his dagger with the left hand. Now he was well armed, and looked so fierce and soldier-like as he faced his foes, that, although four or five blades were out, they held back. Then Peter spoke for the first time, for he knew that against so ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... their business straight-way. Neither did the others abide long in the Hall, but went out into the Burg to see the chapmen and their wares. There the Alderman bought what he needed of iron and steel and other matters; and Folk-might cheapened him a dagger curiously wrought, and a web of gold and silk for the Sun-beam, for which wares he paid in silver arm-rings, ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris



Words linked to "Dagger" :   double dagger, stiletto, kris, poniard, sticker, bodkin, helve, character, haft, dagger fern, obelisk, Spanish dagger, grapheme, dirk, dagger-like, crease, hilt, graphic symbol, creese, knife, kirpan



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com