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Electric shock   /ɪlˈɛktrɪk ʃɑk/   Listen
Electric shock

noun
1.
The use of electricity to administer punishment or torture.
2.
Trauma caused by the passage of electric current through the body (as from contact with high voltage lines or being struck by lightning); usually involves burns and abnormal heart rhythm and unconsciousness.
3.
A reflex response to the passage of electric current through the body.  Synonyms: electrical shock, shock.  "Electricians get accustomed to occasional shocks"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Electric shock" Quotes from Famous Books



... this acted like an electric shock. He had not felt seriously alarmed before as to his own fate. He had only been conscious of a deep anger, a mad determination to make Hogan pay. If the Seminole was sinking, and beyond doubt this was the intention of those deserters, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... sympathetic, inflexible resistance, like an electric shock, startled and roused the people of all the English colonies ...
— Orations • John Quincy Adams

... had been holding his breath. Gibson in Cummings' apartment! A thrill like a mild electric shock shot up and down ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... while the foot has four fingers or claws with, which it clasps fish or small dragons, especially those electric dragons of which you have seen a tame and very much enlarged specimen, and so holds them that they cannot find a chance of delivering their electric shock. But for the Thernee these dragons, winged as they are, would make those lands hardly habitable either for man, or other beasts. All our furs are obtained from those countries, and the creatures from which they are derived are carefully ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... and Ashe, thrilling with new emotions, stared at the door which had closed behind her. He felt as though he had been wakened from sleep by a powerful electric shock. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... crashing ring at the doorbell that acted like an electric shock on the group. Karl and Olga came to their senses, dazed, trembling, thankful. Millar stepped down from the chair, baffled, and turned ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien

... A kind of electric shock ran through the little group in the corner; and one of the persons forming it came forward. It was Weber, ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... seeking among the Edriophthalma for traces of the supposititious Zoea-state, and seized with avidity upon everything that promised to made this refractory Order serviceable to me, Van Beneden's short statement could hardly have affected me so much in the manner of an electric shock, and impelled me to a renewed study of the Tanaides, especially as I had once before plagued myself with them in the Baltic, without getting any further than my predecessors, and I have not much taste for going twice over ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller

... right in the midst of all these apparitions stood the enchanting fairy of Tottenham Court Road. She approached him; she pierced his heart with a smile of her dark eyes; at last she kissed him. The touch of her lips was like an electric shock, and he sprang to his feet. But he could not stand; something was moving under him. He rubbed his eyes; rubbed them again and again; and at last discovered that he was inside a square box, drawn along by two horses. Gradually ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... was heard again. Nelly started as though from an electric shock. Had Helen's cousin returned, but when? And that whisper was a revelation. Then she went on her way. Consent was promptly given and Nelly ran across the shadow-laden lawn to the stables. She found her father, Shelby ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... over the glowing tree-tops into the golden horizon, with a longing, wistful look. At the same time something like an electric shock passed through Nigel's frame, for was not this narrative strangely similar in its main features to that which his own father had told him on the Keeling Islands about beautiful little Kathleen Holbein and her ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... the ears of the listening crowd as if with an electric shock. As they repeated them to each other with fear and amazement, and scattered hither and thither to saddle a horse, or to catch the runaway steed, that they might carry the news in time over the two miles that lay between ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall

... her pretty eyebrows, then accepted the lump of fluffy fur from his hands. Instantly an electric shock seemed to set the squirrel frantic, there was a struggle, a streak of gray and white, and the squirrel leaped from her lap and fairly flew down ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers

... for such misgivings when the electric shock of actual presence was felt—the thin hollow-cheeked face shone with welcome, the liquid brown eyes smiled with thankful sweetness, the fingers, fleshless, but cool and gentle, were held out; and the faint voice said, "My darling! Once try to make ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... sent his light little craft flying towards his goal. Perhaps it was this very speed that saved his life. Bullet after bullet pierced the thin canvas sides and one struck a corner of his paddle, tingling his arm and side like an electric shock. A few minutes of this furious paddling brought him to the bow of the dugout. Seizing its rawhide painter, he fastened the end to a seat in his own boat. Then taking the paddle again, he headed back to the point. The leaden hail fell as thickly as ever, but ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... Electric Ray, also called the Cramp Fish or Torpedo (see p. 48). It is a clumsy fish about a yard long, and very ugly. Being too slow to catch its swift prey in fair chase, it stuns them with an electric shock, and then eats them. The electric power comes from the body of the Ray; if it wishes it can send a deadly shock through any fish which ventures near. Without chance of escape, it is at once ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith

... little Midshipman, and the cry had thrilled every heart on board as with an electric shock. Everybody had instantly understood it. Everybody had felt it to be true. Nothing could be more certain than that the meteor which had just flashed before their eyes was the famous projectile of the Baltimore ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... alternative pathways marked by different degrees of illumination, or by different colours. If the mouse chose compartment A, it found a clear passage direct to its nest; if it chose compartment B, it was punished by a mild electric shock and it had to take a roundabout road home. Needless to say, the A compartment was sometimes to the right hand, sometimes to the left, else mere position would have been a guide. The experiments showed that the dancing mice learn to discriminate the right path from ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... attention of other men. In his own infatuation he had not realized that most men would be affected by her as he was, would experience the same maddening impulses—the same longing—the same thirst for possession of her. Now the fact came home to him with the force of an electric shock. He could not endure the burning glances of admiration that he saw constantly directed toward her. What right had other men to devour her ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous

... suddenly exclaimed. Mr. Pump nearly dropped the bottle. It was as an electric shock to him: an ashy paleness came over his face. "Stop!" he again exclaimed. All eyes were fixed upon him. Some tried to laugh, but could not. Dago set down the bottle, and the glasses, half filled, stood upon the ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... and of her words upon the woman was like that of an electric shock. She sat up in her bed open-mouthed, staring from Sinfi to me, and ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... penetrating philosophy, or developing political life. When a nation has once entered such a social order it becomes stagnant, its further development is arrested. The activity of the higher faculties of the mind are in abeyance, but not destroyed. It needs the electric shock of contact and conflict with foreign races to startle the race out of its fatal repose and start it on new lines of progress by demanding, on pain of death, or at least of racial subordination, the introduction ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... Circassian, the whole of which were on deck, had been struck with an electric shock, the sudden change of their countenances could not have been greater than was produced by this ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... it tentatively. He felt a tingling electric shock. And he thought he could feel a radiation coming from it, giving him a curious sensation of cold. As he reached his hands up and grasped the upper edge of the great ring, he felt what seemed a physical ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... that the revival of my sense of touch did certainly spring from the contact of her lips, pressed to mine in the reckless abandonment of grief without hope. Her cry of joy, when my first sigh told her that I was still a living creature, ran through me like an electric shock. I opened my eyes; I held out my hand; I tried to help her when she raised my head, and set me against the tree under which I had been stretched helpless. With an effort I could call her by her name. Even that exhausted me. My mind was so weak that I should have believed her, ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins

... name, singularly appropriate to the figure of the man who bore it, a tall, fair woman, evidently young-looking for her age, rose as if she had received an electric shock. ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... mentioned; when he found he was the choice—the happy favourite of Melissa's affection, every tender passion of his soul became interested, and was suddenly aroused to the refinements of sensibility. Like an electric shock, it reanimated his whole frame, and vibrated every nerve of his heart. The glooms which hung about his mind were dissipated, and the bright morning of joy broke in upon ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... Mrs. Smith-Lessing. He was lying upon a horsehair sofa, apparently dozing. She was gazing negligently out of the window, and drumming upon the window pane with her fingers. My arrival seemed to act like an electric shock upon both of them. It struck me that to her it was not altogether welcome, but my father was nervously anxious to impress upon me his satisfaction ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... were coarse, shapeless impressions, precisely such as would be made by the rude moccasins worn by Arthur and Johnny. Others were the prints of naked feet, and some of these were of far too large a size to be made by either of the three. This discovery affected us for the moment like an electric shock, and we stood looking at one another without speaking, and scarcely breathing, while the very beating of our hearts might ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... shock in children after being shot even when no serious injury was sustained. At the moment of injury the patient experiences a sensation which is variously described as being like the lash of a whip, a blow with a stick, or an electric shock. There is not much pain at first, but later it may become severe, and is usually associated with intense thirst, especially when much blood has ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... Territories of the United States, the heritage of coming generations, to the invasion of slavery, suddenly revealed the whole significance of the slavery question to the people of the free States, and thrust itself into the politics of the country as the paramount issue. Something like an electric shock flashed through the North. Men who but a short time before had been absorbed by their business pursuits, and deprecated all political agitation, were startled out of their security by a sudden alarm, and excitedly took sides. That ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... at a loss to know how to meet the situation until his hand, quite by chance, touched hers as it lay on the arm of her chair. He withdrew it as quickly as if he had received an electric shock, but the next moment, like a lodestone following a magnet, it traveled slowly ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice

... feeling, the low murmur of admiring crowds, how she longed to cry aloud, "My son—my son!" He speaks again. Higher and higher rises his lofty strain, bearing along with it the passions of the multitude. He ceases—and, as though touched by an electric shock, hundreds spring at once to their feet. The emphatic "Silence!" of the venerable judge hushes the shout upon their lips, but the mother has seen that movement, and, bursting into tears of proud triumphant ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... rang twice; slowly, deliberately, producing on the nurse the effect of an electric shock. She threw down some house-linen which she had in her hands, overturned a chair or two that stood in her way, and tore a curtain that opposed her progress, leaving devastation and destruction in her ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various

... am, sir," answered Robbins—for my words had thrilled through the little craft like an electric shock, and already the watch below were scrambling up through the hatchway, carrying their clothing in their hands, in their eagerness to get a glimpse of ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... in the same direction. Not only can the nervous stimulus be developed by an electric shock, but the strength of the stimulus is within certain limits proportional to the strength of the shock which produces it. Again, not only is it found that an electrical shock can develop a nervous stimulus, but conversely a nervous stimulus ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn

... seemed to thrill the looker like an electric shock. She stopped short,—so suddenly that those who immediately followed her had a narrow escape from collision. Her face was heavily veiled, and beneath that veil was but one eye, yet in the same swift glance with which she comprehended the figure she took in the elastic step and ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... choice of the box-which-did- not-ring both reward and punishment were employed. The reward consisted of freedom to return to the nest-box via the passage which led from the box-which-did-not-ring; the punishment, which consisted of a disagreeable electric shock, was given whenever the mouse entered the wrong box, that is, the one which had the sound as a warning. Entering the wrong box resulted in a disagreeable stimulus and in the necessity of returning to the large box, for the exit to the nest-box by way of the passage from this ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... With parted lips, just breaking into a smile, Pete went down on one knee by the cradle, put the mallet under his arm, and gently raised the shawl curtain. "God bless my motherless girl," he said, in a voice no louder than a breath. Suddenly, while he knelt there, he was smitten as by an electric shock. His face straightened and he drew back, still holding the shawl at the ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... been firing, and the defenders of the barricade returning their fire, for about a quarter of an hour, without any one being wounded on either side, when suddenly, as if by an electric shock, an extraordinary and threatening movement took place, first in the infantry, then in the cavalry. The troops ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... sound of a spar being wounded, which, like an electric shock, reverberated through the vessel. Another and ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... one another with deep purposes on both sides, they seldom come at once to the matter which they have most at heart. They dread the electric shock of a too sudden contact with it. A natural impulse leads them to steal gradually onward, hiding themselves, as it were, behind a closer, and still a closer topic, until they stand face to face with the true point of interest. ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... tingle shoot through his body, as though he had received an electric shock. He winced, and cried out at the sudden pain ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst

... aekonti ge thymo]—made on each occasion either some new concession to the ever-rising tide of Christian demand, or ratified the loss of a province which had been forcibly torn from his flank. Finally, we get to the period when the tragedy connected with the name of Queen Draga acted like an electric shock on Europe, and when the accession of King Peter, "who had translated Mill On Liberty," to the blood-stained Servian throne, revealed to an astonished world that the processes of Byzantinism survived to the present day. Five years later ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... tell thee if it be so or not. Thus by whole migrating nations, full of instinct, which is thy faith, in this backward spring, turned adrift, and perchance knowest not where men do not dwell, where there are not factories, in these days. Armed with no sword, no electric shock, but mere Shad, armed only with innocence and a just cause, with tender dumb mouth only forward, and scales easy to be detached. I for one am with thee, and who knows what may avail a crow-bar against ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... his hotel that afternoon pretty well satisfied with his efforts and hopeful that some of the seed he had sown broadcast would be ripe for the reaping ere-long. But he received an electric shock as he approached the desk, for the bell captain addressed ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... There he is, great, ruddy, hairy wretch: there she is, a wraith of a creature made up of thistledown and fountain-bubbles and stars. He stares at her, stretches out his huge paw to grab a fairy, feathery tress of her dark hair. Defensive, she puts up her little hand. Its touch is an electric shock to the marauder. He blinks, and rubs his arm. He has a mighty respect for her. He could take her up in his fingers and eat her like a quail—the one satisfactory method of eating a quail is unfortunately practised only by ogres—but he does not want to eat her. He goes on his knees, and ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... this, he flung himself upon the deed, and was going to throw it into the fire. Now up to that moment she had been overpowered by this man's fury, whom she had never seen the least angry before; but when he laid hands on her property it acted like an electric shock. "No! no!" she screamed, and sprang at ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... an electric shock had passed through the room with that voice, and struck at the same time both Gammer ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... slam of the door had been an electric shock. During the interview she had been pale and grave but outwardly calm. Now she sank wearily down in the chair from which she had risen and her head dropped forward upon her arms on the table. The letter she had been reading before Captain Nat's ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the circle like an electric shock. Men stopped in the act of pledging each other's healths to listen. Loungers straightened up; every topic was dropped. The man who had made the statement was the loose-lipped busybody who had suggested to his host that he give up his six-shooter since there were ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... like an electric shock, and, even as his eyes opened, his hand shot out, the fingers grasping the butt of a revolver that was pointed straight at ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish

... of the entire company front, as from an electric shock, attested the startling character of the incident. The sergeant paled and paused. The captain strode quickly to ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce

... light! With deadly accuracy the shot clove the fourth strand. The lower half of a whole section of fence was gone. Behind it the bucking, red-eyed phantis inched forward, still afraid of the electric shock they thought was somewhere there, but drawn to the opening by their hatred of the two-legged creatures so near. Closer, closer! Then the befuddled pirates found their senses. Even as the fifth arrow of light came from the ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore

... loud cough. There was a squeaking sound of a cork being thrust into a bottle, and the doctor went out of his cabin, shut the door sharply, and went off, while it was like an electric shock through me, and I stared wildly, for Walters started up, and in a vicious angry ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... sense of elation, tingling as an electric shock, surged over Stratton, and his grip on the Colt tightened. At last he was face to face with something definite and concrete, and in a moment all the little doubts and nagging nervous qualms which had assailed him ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... kingly domination, that "TAXATION, WITHOUT REPRESENTATION, IS TYRANNY." Like the deep and startling tones of an alarm-bell, echoing from hill to hill, his bold eloquence aroused the hearts of thinking men from the Penobscot to the St. Mary; and his published arguments, like an electric shock, thrilled every nerve in the Atlantic provinces. "Otis was a flame of fire," said John Adams, in describing the scene in the Massachusetts Assembly, when the orator uttered his denunciations. "With a promptitude of classical allusion and a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... companions, who had thus caught some of the creatures, by showing them how the electric shock could pass from one person to another. They joined hands in a line, while he touched the biggest and freshest of the animals on the head with the point of his hunting-knife. He found, however, that the experiment did not succeed more than three times with the same eel when out of the water, for the ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... as if thrilled by an electric shock—all fixed their eyes timidly and anxiously on Napoleon—every one held his breath to hear his reply, and felt already in advance the most profound compassion for the unhappy old man who would be crushed with the victor's ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... thunder is heard—the lightning flickers at the window and a flash is seen on the telephone which tinkles and responds as though from the electric shock. Exclaiming "Ugh," FREDERIK drops ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco

... for a second as you danced past her. It was true she was of a startling prettiness and there was something—. Yes, there was SOMETHING which drew the eye and—. He did not know what it was. It had actually given him a sort of electric shock. He laughed at himself a little and then his open brow looked puzzled ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... thrill, as of an electric shock, had passed through them all, silencing them. Mrs. Beale, with a sigh, released herself from the uneasy impression Mrs. Malcomson's words had made upon her, and felt the peace of mind, which she managed to preserve by refusing to know of ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... may all know by feeling it working upon ourselves, though it be immeasurable, has its measure; though it be, in its depth and fulness, unknowable and inexhaustible, may yet be really and truly known. You do not need a thunderstorm to experience the electric shock; a battery that you can carry in your pocket will do that for you. You do not need to have traversed all the length and breadth and depth and height of some newly-discovered country to be sure of its existence, and to have a real, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... answered a voice at the other end of the wire. "This is Billy Bunny, and I'm lost in the Friendly Forest." "What!" cried the old gentleman rabbit, and he got so excited that he put the wrong end of the receiver to his left ear and got an awful electric shock that nearly wiggled his ear off. ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory

... he began writing what he called a Treatise on the Will; his subsequent reflections led to many changes in its plan and method; but the incident of that day was certainly the germ of the work, just as the electric shock always felt by Mesmer at the approach of a particular manservant was the starting-point of his discoveries in magnetism, a science till then interred under the mysteries of Isis, of Delphi, of the cave of Trophonius, and rediscovered by ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac

... faithful to secrets that are now disregarded by most of us, that now day by day was quickened more and more in his heart, and grew so strong that it was hard to conceal. He was indeed almost in the position of the man in the tale, who, by a sudden electric shock, lost the vision of the things about him in the London streets, and gazed instead upon the sea and shore of an island in the Antipodes; for Darnell only clung with an effort to the interests and the atmosphere which, till lately, had seemed all the world to him; ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... house was thrilled as with an electric shock, and the people half rose as if to seek a glimpse of the person who had made that exchange. Tom was growing limp; the life seemed oozing out ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... an electric shock a thousand times more powerful than the tingling which had flashed up her arm at the first touch of his hand, though even that had seemed terrifying then. But she sat still in her corner of the taxi, and gave him no answer, ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... was half asleep after the weary watching of the night, or perhaps she was only too tired to notice, but when a voice suddenly spoke behind her she started as if at an electric shock. She had almost begun to feel that she and Columbus were indeed marooned on this ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... received a letter from her. She wrote, "It is just a year ago tonight since I sent for you to come and pray for me. As you prayed for me it was as though an electric shock went through me and after you left I turned over on my left side and went to sleep and slept all night and in the morning when I woke up I was perfectly healed. I have waited a year before writing, to see whether any symptoms returned, ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag

... of the carriage, she leans lightly on my arm; the contact runs through me like an electric shock. She is a wonderful woman, and I love ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

... change came o'er my frame, Much like electric shock; Oh, how I longed for some rare key With which I might unlock My prison door, for I now felt The breath of coming Spring, And heard, likewise, her merry laugh, Like silver bells its ring. My lips were close to blanket rent, I ceased my useless strife, ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant

... started as if moved by an electric shock, and, turning quickly, met the supplicating ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... her. Her face was hidden by a veil, but he drank in with glad eyes the special movement in walking, peculiar to her alone, the slope of the shoulders, and the setting of the head, and at once a sort of electric shock ran all over him. With fresh force, he felt conscious of himself from the springy motions of his legs to the movements of his lungs as he breathed, and ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... discovery was like an electric shock to me, and drew a cry of joy from my lips that made my mustang start and prick his ears. Tears of delight and gratitude to Heaven came into my eyes, and I could scarcely refrain from leaping off my horse and kissing the welcome ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... and snuffed the scented air, his eyes glistened with delight, and he uttered a faint "Hurrah!" and yawned again. Then he gazed slowly round, till, observing the calm sea through an opening in the bushes, he started suddenly up as if he had received an electric shock, uttered a vehement shout, flung off his garments, and, rushing over the white sands, plunged into the water. The cry awoke Jack, who rose on his elbow with a look of grave surprise; but this was followed by a quiet smile of intelligence on seeing Peterkin in the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... out the Nipe would have been very useful, but to synthesize such a drug would have required a greater knowledge of the biochemical processes of the Nipe than any human scientist had. The same applied to anesthetic gases, or electric shock, or supersonics. There was no way of determining how much would be required to knock him out or how much would be required to kill. There ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Sahwah's eye and motioned her to come back to her seat, and Sahwah went tripping down the aisle to join her friends. She glanced casually at the young lieutenant as she passed him; he was staring fixedly at her and she dropped her eyes quickly. A little electric shock tingled through her as she met his eyes; he seemed to be about to speak to her. "Probably mistook me for someone else and thought he knew me," Sahwah thought to herself, and dismissed him from ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey

... you ask us our opinion—our private opinion—it is that she scarcely heard of him, if she heard at all, and certainly never set eyes on him, until one day her madcap little daughter brought him home, half-killed by an electric shock, in a cab we were at some pains to describe accurately a few pages ago. And even then, had it not been for the individualities of that cab, she might have missed seeing him, and let him go away to the infirmary or the ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... all at once broken by the clear, well-emphasized voice of a judicial officer, reading the sentence; it was listened to with such breathless attention, that, when the phrase, condemned to death, was uttered, a visible shudder vibrated, like an electric shock, through the dense mass of human beings, and upturned faces flushed or grew pallid in an instant; but scarcely were these simultaneous emotions recognized, when another phrase, life granted, called ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... equipage, and all the arrangements for cooking and serving food. All the property of the general, the staff, and the headquarters' bureau was strapped to the pommels and cantels of the saddles, and these formed the pillows of their weary owners. The captured dispatch roused Jackson like an electric shock. He was essentially a man of action. He rarely, if ever, hesitated. He never asked advice. He called no council to discuss the situation disclosed by this communication, although his ranking officers were almost at his side. He asked no conference of opinion. He ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... was rewarded for his temerity by a blow from Harney. With that blow still tingling about his ears and confusing his senses, Claib could not well tell whence or from whom came that silvery, half-tremulous voice, which passed so like an electric shock through the eager crowd, and rousing ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... calls on his crew once more; they respond gallantly yet, but the rudder is against them for a moment, and the boat drags. St. Ambrose overlaps. "A bump, a bump," shout the St. Ambrosians on shore. "Row on, row on," screams Miller. He has not yet felt the electric shock, and knows he will miss his bump if the young ones slacken for a moment. A young coxswain would have gone on making shots at the stern of the Oriel boat, and so ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... weathercocks, pay my compliments to the bells, inspect the fire-alarm, and pick up information by listening at the telegraph wires. People often talk about "a little bird" who spreads news; but they don't know how that figure of speech originated. It is the sparrows sitting on the wires, who receive the electric shock, and, being hollow-boned, the news go straight to their heads; they then fly about, chirping it on the housetops, and the air carries it everywhere. That's the way rumours rise ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... You did not, then, understand the cause of my swooning yesterday? I will explain. I felt a severe pain in the sole of my foot, which passed like an electric shock through my frame, and I became insensible. While unconscious, my blood, of course, ceased to flow, and the physician did not discover the cause of my sudden illness. This morning, in attempting to walk, ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... possible, got into the room and, yes, went home to my heart. It was followed without any transition, preparation, or warning, by a positively bellowed: "Speak, perjured beast!" which I felt pass in a thrill right through Dona Rita like an electric shock, leaving ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... Frenchmen, contrasting the glories of 1796 with the humiliating campaigns that had followed, might, by connecting the new candidate for power with the public glory, and the existing rulers with all the dishonors which had settled on the French banners, have given an electric shock to the patriotism of the audience, such as would have been capable for the moment of absorbing their feelings as partisans. In a French assembly, movements of that nature, under a momentary impulse, are far from being uncommon. Here, then, if ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... in a deep tone which roused the man's intelligence. He raised his eyes to those of his master and encountered so piercing a look that the effect was that of an electric shock. ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac

... They don't talk, and can't seem to hear us, no matter how loud we yell. We have to show 'em everything we want 'em to do, and give 'em orders by signs. Whips don't do any good when they loaf—they don't seem to feel 'em. So we use electric shock-rods, like you ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans

... feet as by an electric shock. "I never could have believed," he cried, "that you had humour enough to tell a lie. You've gone a bit too far, old man, with your little joke. Even in a lunatic asylum there can't be anybody who, having thought about the matter, thinks that a triangle has not got three sides. If he ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... yourself about this, night and day, until this desire is so awake in you that you can't go idle many moments without its rushing into your mind, and giving you a kind of electric shock. And when that happens you fling aside every thing else, every idea but the work that you ought to be doing, and put all your faculties upon that; and every time that you catch them wandering, you do the same thing again, and again. Some ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... Crawford [1734-1801], when thrown out by the vehemence of strong feeling, seemed to wither up the hearer; it was a flaming arrow, a lighting of passion. Such was the effect of her almost shriek to old Norval, "Was he alive?" It was like an electric shock, which drove the blood back to the heart, and produced a shudder of terror through the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... barouche, drawn by a pair of fine, spirited gray horses, as it flashed by him. Quickly as the carriage passed, he recognized in the distinguished looking young lady seated within it—Claudia!—recognized her with an electric shock that thrilled his whole being, paralyzed him where he stood and bound him to the spot! He gazed after the flying vehicle until it vanished from his sight. Then he sank down where he stood and covered his face with his hands ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... entering gray of morning light. She heard the chirp of awakening birds, and fancied she caught a faint clatter of hoofs. Then low, dull distant, throbbed a heavy gunshot. She had expected it, was waiting for it; nevertheless, an electric shock checked her heart, froze the very living fiber of her bones. That vise-like hold on her faculties apparently did not relax for a long time, and it was a voice under her window ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... Confederate banner floating above the rotunda. Some of the students during the night, surmounting difficulty and braving danger, had clambered to the summit and erected there the symbol of a new nation. I was thrilled by the sight of it as if by an electric shock. There it was, outstretched by a bracing northwest wind, flapping defiantly, arousing patriotic emotion. Unable longer to refrain, I went as soon as the lecture was concluded to Professor Minor's residence and told him I was going to enter ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway

... "Come on, boys!" and went forward, stooping. A bullet struck his rifle. The shock made him stagger and sent an electric shock spinning up his arm. 'Luck again!' he thought. 'Now for it! I haven't seen a German yet!' He leaped forward, spun round, flung up his arms, and fell on his back, shot through ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the buggy hood was in the way. Tom had to help her, was in the act of lifting her to the step, when the wicket latch, clicked and Ardea and Miss Euphrasia came out. They passed on without comment, but Tom could feel the electric shock of righteous scorn through the back of his head. That was why he drove half-way to the lower end of the pike before he turned ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... Gruyon. Her fleet is equal to the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, and her steam-fleet superior to the Russian. She has for allies all the people from the Caucasus to the Carpathians. The Circassians, the Tartars under Emir Mirza, the Cossacks of the Dobroja, by whom the electric shock is transmitted to Poland and Hungary, form an unbroken chain, by which the spark is carried into the heart of Europe, where all the combustible elements wait for the moment of explosion. Twenty-four years ago Turkey was believed to be in a decaying ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... is termed by physiologists a stimulus. The slightest movement of the thin cover-glass placed over the drop of water in which an amoeba is immersed, on a microscopic slide, suffices to act as a stimulus, and serves much the same purpose as an electric shock to the muscles of a man. In man an elaborate apparatus exists for the process known as respiration, but in this and in all other cases the mechanism is composed of what is known technically as cells, the latter being the units of structure, the individual bricks of the building, so to speak; ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills

... that upper chamber, were interchanged in low tones; whispered conversation was held as to the recent events, the tidings of which had thrilled like an electric shock through the heart of Jerusalem. The victories of Judas Maccabeus were in every mind and on every tongue. Glad prophecies were circulated amongst the guests that the next Passover would not be held in secret, ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... the Latin scholar uttered his invocation he felt something between a shudder and an electric shock pass through his body. The roar of the battle died down in his ears to a gentle murmur; instead of it, he says, he heard a great voice and a shout louder than a thunder-peal ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... didn't we bring a gun!" lamented Mr. Damon in a low voice to Tom. "Isn't there anything we can do? Can't you give them an electric shock, Tom?" ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton

... voice of Natas trembled with irrepressible passion, which, before he could proceed, broke from his heaving breast in a deep sob that thrilled the vast assembly like an electric shock, and made men clench their hands and grit their teeth, and wrung an answering sob from the breast of many a woman who knew but too well the meaning of those simple yet terrible words. Then Natas recovered his outward composure and ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... Binder?" asked Kaunitz, still laughing. "Why do you start as if you had received an electric shock?" ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... as they advanced toward the frozen-in Hvalross cheering loudly, acted like an electric shock, and before they reached the deck with Steve, men who had been lying in hopeless misery shut up in their bunks came crawling out to meet the help which they ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... others of the party joined in the chorus with increased volume of sound. As the echo died away, at the moment of gliding under the shadow of the high mountain, the second verse was begun, but was never finished. If an electric shock had startled every individual of the party, there could have been no more simultaneous effect than when the second line of the second verse was reached, when instead of song, sobs and outcries of grief poured forth ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... right wrongs, to defend causes, to uplift the fallen. Girls are not all weak and uncertain, because they are girls. No; they are strong and brave, and reliable in danger. The boiler of a steam-yacht exploded; several girls were on board; the crew were busy saving themselves; the girls, with an electric shock of mother-care, jumped to save one another. They neither fainted nor screamed, with one exception, which was a somewhat feeble serving-girl, who was stoutly shaken and told to ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... Serbian soldiers were seated in a cluster on the right in front of the bar at the far end of the room. Colonel Frank advanced to them and said, "Brothers, you have had enough to drink, you are keeping all the attendants from their proper rest; it is time for you to go home." It was like an electric shock. About a dozen of the ruffians sprang to their feet hurling every possible Slavonic epithet at this brave Russian officer who was merely performing a public duty. One dark-visaged Serb cavalryman ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... bone-white but possessing an odd luster which bone would not normally show. And it was carved. Shann put out a finger, though he had a strange reluctance to touch the object. When he did he experienced a sensation close to the tingle of a mild electric shock. And once he had made that contact, he was also impelled to pick up that disk ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... spasmodically to their feet, and fled from the apartment. My boy, who had been awed and terrified, began to cry, and I too was startled. Again he uttered the harsh gutturals, and instantly, as with an electric shock, another half-dozen of the prostrate slaves sprang up and ran. Then he resumed his mysterious promenade, still carefully keeping an eye upon us, and smiling by way of conversation. It was long before I could imagine what we were to do. Boy, fairly ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... the door opening on to the landing opened, and Noel appeared, pale as usual, but calm and composed. The dying woman saw him, and the sight affected her like an electric shock. A terrible shudder shook her frame; her eyes grew inordinately large, her hair seemed to stand on end. She raised herself on her pillows, stretched out her arm in the direction where Noel stood, and in a loud ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... which ran over her and which went through me also, like an electric shock, aroused me. When I opened my eyes I saw her face bathed in tears. She drew back and repelled me. I arose impetuously, seated myself by her side and took her in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... all, Lill had clung in terror to Vinnie, whose arms were still about her. Cecie sat in her chair by the supper-table, white and speechless from the electric shock which all had felt, and she more sensibly than the rest. Caroline was in the next room with the child, whose cries, for a while drowned in the terrible uproar, now broke forth again, strenuous and shrill. Mr. Betterson, holding the frightened ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... of this incident touched the bystanders as with an electric shock, and the place at once rang out with the most genuine and hearty applause The little balloon thrown up by Montgolfier sped away to the north-east, its beautiful emerald colour showing to fine ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion

... almost of fear, but something in his gaze held her as though spell-bound. She looked into his eyes like one fascinated, scarcely knowing what he said or what reply she made. The waltz began, and as their fingers touched Kate's nerves tingled as though from an electric shock. She shivered slightly, then, angry with herself, used every exertion to overcome the strange spell. To a great extent she succeeded, but she felt benumbed, as though moving in a dream or in obedience to some will stronger than her own, while ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... had been eulogized as a social and domestic man, poet, and historian; but nothing had been said of him as a politician, and he should speak of him in this character. The rising of such a man was an electric shock, suggestive of that which in 1848 made all Europe tremble from centre to circumference. The word politician was a second shock, drawing with it suggestively all the concomitants of that revolution, as yet so well remembered by all. And when he proceeded ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... bending over some footprints beside a small field-piece that, dismounted and rusted, lay half buried in ashes, a sudden whir-r-r caused him to spring back as though he had received an electric shock. Only his quickness saved him from the living death held in the fangs of a rattlesnake that had evidently just crawled from the black muzzle of the gun. The snake instantly re-coiled to repeat its venomous stroke, and though Donald could easily have ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... the crowd's gaze to Rosalind, swiftly. The girl had hardly realized that she had spoken. Her senses, paralyzed a minute before, had received the electric shock of sympathy from a continued study of the Judge's face. She saw remorse on it, regret, shame, and the birth of a resolution to make whatever reparation that was within his power, at whatever cost. It was a weak face, but it was not vicious, and while she had been standing there she had noted the ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... pronounced the words that her heart already recorded! And she might have done so; but as she raised her eyes, the same object that had before affected Godolphin came vividly upon her, and changed, as by an electric shock, the whole current of her thoughts. Full and immediately before her was the picture of her father. The attitude there delineated, so striking at all times, seemed to Constance at that moment more than ever impressive, ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... with the particulars of his intended plan. "I believe," writes his lordship, "my arrival was most welcome; not only to the commanders of the fleet, but also to every individual in it; and, when I came to explain to them the Nelson touch, it was like an electric shock. Some shed tears, all approved. It was new, it was singular, it was simple; and, from admirals downwards, it was repeated—"It must succeed, if ever they will allow us to get at them! You are, my lord, surrounded by friends whom you inspire with confidence."—"Some," ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... stomach which knocks her down; both women are searched and he personally leads them to the guard-room.—The slightest expression, a gesture, puts him beside himself; any motion that he does not comprehend makes him start, as with an electric shock. Just arrived at Cambray, he is informed that a woman who had sold a bottle of wine below the maximum, had been released after a proces-verbal. On reaching the Hotel-de-ville, he shouts out: "Let everybody here pass into the Consistory!" The municipal ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... the resolutions of the county of Middlesex of August, 1774, were embodied in action,—the confusion consequent upon so serious a matter as resistance to the Parliament and Ministry of England,—the retreat of the invading party,—the hot pursuit,—the final flight,—and the electric shock which the proceedings of April 19 gave to the colonies ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell



Words linked to "Electric shock" :   corporal punishment, reflex action, reflex response, hurt, reflex, torturing, innate reflex, electrical shock, physiological reaction, trauma, harm, torture, injury, instinctive reflex, unconditioned reflex, inborn reflex



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