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Embrace   /ɛmbrˈeɪs/  /ɪmbrˈeɪs/   Listen
Embrace

verb
(past & past part. embraced; pres. part. embracing)
1.
Include in scope; include as part of something broader; have as one's sphere or territory.  Synonyms: comprehend, cover, encompass.  "This should cover everyone in the group"
2.
Squeeze (someone) tightly in your arms, usually with fondness.  Synonyms: bosom, hug, squeeze.  "They embraced" , "He hugged her close to him"
3.
Take up the cause, ideology, practice, method, of someone and use it as one's own.  Synonyms: adopt, espouse, sweep up.  "They adopted the Jewish faith"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Embrace" Quotes from Famous Books



... princes of Tyre and Venice and Liverpool, and we behold, in these imperial towers, the types of the magnificence of the coming time. There never was so fair and superb, ample and opulent a bride as she, in the wholesome arms of the ocean that embrace these islands, adorned with the trophies of the wealth of the world, and whose rulers, the slavery of crime abolished, are the sovereign millions. These are new developments of authority, new ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... that Wei at first was the eastern portion of the old domain of the kings of Shang. With this a brother of king W, called Khang-sh, was invested. The principality was afterwards increased by the absorption of Phei and Yung. It came to embrace portions of the present provinces of Kih-l, Shan-tung, and Ho-nan. It outlasted the dynasty of Ku itself, the last prince of Wei being reduced to the ranks of the people only during the dynasty ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... "connected with you, I cannot understand; you call yourself a thorough-going Papist, yet are continually saying the most pungent things against Popery, and turning to unbounded ridicule those who show any inclination to embrace it." ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... first view Meteorology may appear to occupy but a limited sphere, upon a closer examination it will be found to embrace almost all the sciences, and to be commensurate with Nature itself. It is continually influencing us, by its agencies appealing to our senses, ministering to our wants, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... had torn her hands out of Mme. la Duchesse's grasp and now was struggling to free herself from Jeanne's terrified and clinging embrace. ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... Ukridge's creditors," I said. "I am just about to address them. Perhaps you will take a seat. The grass is quite dry. My remarks will embrace you as ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... making no other use of the rules of rhetoric or grammar, than to enable him to speak or write with accuracy and perspicuity, and always preferring a plain and simple to an ornamented style. Whilst some doubt of everything, and others profess to acknowledge everything, a wise man will embrace such tenets, and only such as are built upon experience, or ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... officer conducted his guest into a garden and presented him to his wife, an engaging and beautiful woman, sitting with Mrs. Taunton in a whimsical old-fashioned pavilion. His daughter, her fair young face beaming with joy, came running to embrace him; and there was a boy-baby to tumble down among the orange trees on the broad steps, in making for his father's legs. A multitude of children visitors were dancing to sprightly music; and all the servants and peasants about the chateau ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens

... looked earnestly into my face, and with a quick bending of one knee in courtesy, and a "Merci, M'sieu; merci," ran with all her speed toward the priest, who stretched wide his arms, half-lifting her from the ground in the embrace. Then a smile broke over his face, so joyous, so full of love and tenderness, so much the unconscious index of the heart that prompted it, that I laid down my palette to ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... through, Nealie; help me to get into dry clothes," panted Rumple, struggling to escape from this unexpected and wholly unwelcome embrace. ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant

... released herself from his arms. "Oh!" she exclaimed, in conscience-stricken tones, "Mrs. Caley's medicine! I—forgot; she should have had some long ago." He tried to catch her once more in his embrace, restrain her. "It would be better not to wake her up," he protested, "sleep's what sick folks need." But she continued to evade him. Mrs. Caley must have her medicine. The doctor had said that it was important. "It's my duty, Gordon," she told ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... it still—a wonderfully good portrait of her, for whether Zikali was or was not a wizard, he was certainly a good artist. There she stands, her body a little bent, her arms outstretched, her head held forward with the lips parted, just as though she were about to embrace somebody, and in one of her hands, cut also from the white sap of the umzimbiti, she grasps a human heart—Saduko's, I presume, or ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... effusive ladies who go into ecstasies over everything and everybody. She is what Raffles used to call a palaverer. Where most people nod she describes a complete circle with her head. When a cold, formal handshake is necessary she perpetrates an embrace, and that is where we come in. At my next Tuesday tea she will be present. She will wear her pearls—she'll be strung with them from head to foot. A rope-walk won't be in it with her, and every single little ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs

... into his arms—I saw it," said Uarda. "Never shall I forget it. It was as if the bright lake there had risen up to embrace ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... There was little undergrowth, but a perfect wilderness of climbers clustered round the trees, twisting in a thousand fantastic windings, and finally running down to the ground, where they took fresh root and formed props to the dead tree their embrace had killed. Not a flower was to be seen, but ferns grew by the roadside in luxuriance. Butterflies were scarce, but dragonflies darted along like sparks of fire. The road had the advantage of being shady and cool, but the heavy rain and traffic had made ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... the world is self-operating. They cast their first ballot with an emotion of pride perhaps, but are sure to pay their first tax with a groan. They see political organizations in active existence; the parish, and the church, and other important bodies that embrace in some form of society all men, are successfully operated; and yet these young men have no part or lot in the matter. They do not think of giving a day's time ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... his laugh rang through the cabin. "So you twisted it from me, Spanish dog!—so I raved out my heart as to a woman? Then, Don Sathanas, we'll go home together and all the soldiery of hell shall not unlock our embrace!" He grappled with an invisible foe—bent him backward farther and farther over the brink of the world—went down ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... everything," continued Izz, unheeding. "A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; the first is now ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... scarcely conceal his triumph; that she should so fully play into his hand was to him the greatest good luck. With every expression of love he agreed to everything; but when he would embrace her she put him away—"Not until we are married;" and lie ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright

... glad to-day to be able to embrace Andreas Hofer again," said the archduke, encircling the Herculean form of the Tyrolese innkeeper with his arms. "But I will shed no tears to-day, Andreas, for I hope the time of tears is over, and you have come to tell me so, to bring me love-greetings from the Tyrolese, and the hope of better times. ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... most loving heart in the world, returned her embrace, and nestled close to her, and felt in spite of herself a little better than ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade

... my life. For three years now I have not seen you, and at the thought of going to Belgirate my heart beats so wildly that I am forced to stop.—To see you, to hear that girlish caressing voice! To embrace in my gaze that ivory skin, glistening under the candlelight, and through which I can read your noble mind! To admire your fingers playing on the keys, to drink in your whole soul in a look, in the tone of an Oime or an Alberto! To walk by the blossoming ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac

... be careful, it is true, to keep the organism healthy, to guard against disintegration of tissue; but to that duty American writers are quite as keenly alive as we. It is not a source of weakness but of power and vitality to the English language that it should embrace a greater variety of dialects than any other civilised tongue. A new language, says the proverb, is a new sense; but a multiplicity of dialects means, for the possessors of the main language, an enlargement of the pleasures of the linguistic sense without the fatigue ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... did not deign a reply, but our grappling-irons being ready, our helm was put hard a starboard, we ran alongside the brig, and had her fast locked in a deadly embrace. ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... not be borne without an embrace 'Oh, mamma!' Hester exclaimed, throwing herself on her knees before ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... chalice was empty, that first impression reasserted itself; the human and the external died in the embrace of the Divine and Invisible, and once more silence lived and glowed.... And again as the spiritual energy sank back again into its origin, Silvester ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... looked up from the embrace to see a pretty smiling woman standing in the doorway, a wet raincoat over one arm, and a wet hat ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... her arms, She press'd me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, look'd up, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... write to his friends: "Nothwithstanding the fevers have vexed me, ... yitt have I travelled through the most part of this realme where (all praise be to His blessed Majestie) men of all sorts and conditiouns embrace the Truthe.... We doe nothing but goe about Jericho, blowing with trumpets as God giveth strenth, hoping [for the] victorie by His power alone."[101] The reformer's expectation of victory, and of victory by the persuasive means which Bishop Hooper affirmed were alone legitimate ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... mind. I myself imagine a marriage of the sun and moon in the arts I take most pleasure in; and now bride and bridegroom but exchange, as it were, full cups of gold and silver, and now they are one in a mystical embrace. From the moon come the folk-songs imagined by reapers and spinners out of the common impulse of their labour, and made not by putting words together, but by mixing verses and phrases, and the folk-tales made by the capricious mixing of incidents known to everybody in new ways, ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... an emotion in the water, as to make the boats rock about, to the great alarm of the crews, and particularly the natives, who now began to wish, that they had not been seduced by the potency of the spirituous liquid, to venture into a region, where death presented itself to them, in the strict embrace of an elephant's trunk, or bored to death by the teeth of the river horse. In regard to the latter animal, the danger which they incurred, was more imminent than with the elephants, but this did not arise from the greater ferocity or savageness of the animal, for the river horse moves ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... Church is S. 44 degrees) August was, with us, mid-winter. A thunderstorm had broken upon us in the morning, itself an unusual meteorological phenomenon, and the downpour of black rain, shutting off the views and enclosing us in a torrential embrace of floods, had lasted an hour when it passed away, and the Sun re-illumined the wide glistening scene. The line of foam from the breakers along the remote shore, yet lashing with curbing crests the inlets, promontories, ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... time, the two remained in each other's embrace, blissful and silent. All this time Agnes Barker looked on, with a dawning ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... signor—you always were," exclaimed the beggar, trying to fall down and embrace his knees, which the Greek prevented. "I will go to any part of the world. I will go through fire and water to ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... it. You were the first to find that that way of dressing it became me, besides, it is the fashion, and tomorrow is my reception day. Come, you irritable man, embrace me once for all and snore at your ease, you are ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... of Ascalon subdued and confined. With the falling of the wind the danger of the disaster spreading to embrace the entire town decreased almost to safety, although the wary, scorched townsmen stood watch over the smoldering coals which lay deep where the principal ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... Those legions, hushed in reverent awe, Stand silent like the tranquil floods That raise their hands of lotus buds. But Rama, when the king, to greet His friend, had bowed him at his feet, Raised him who ruled the Vanar race, And held him in a close embrace: Then, when his arms he had unknit, Besought him by his side to sit, And thus with gentle words the best Of ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... being which he has no real wish to renounce; and he wonders whether she, the already released, who is upborne by those sunlit wings, does not look down with pity and wonder upon him. So also will Elvire, though less dispassionately, watch the intellectual vagaries of her Don Juan, which embrace the heavens, but are always centred in earth. This prologue is preceded by a quotation from Moliere's "Don Juan," in which Elvire satirically prescribes to her lover the kind of self-defence—or something not unlike it—which Mr. Browning's hero ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... than this; for there are many shades of difference between those who flatly renounce, and those who cordially embrace the doctrine of Redemption by Christ. This class has a sort of general, indeterminate, and ill understood dependence on our blessed Saviour. But their hopes, so far as they can be distinctly made out (for their views also are very obscure) ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... that ones Ears felt the melodious Sound. How often have I, deceived by a Lovers Credulity, hearkned if she had not something to whisper me? and when frustrated of my Hopes, how often have I taken my Revenge in Kisses from her Cheeks and Eyes, and softly wooed her to my Embrace, whilst she (as to me it seem'd) only withheld her Tongue the more to inflame me. But, Madman that I am, shall I be thus taken with the Representation only of a beauteous Face, and flowing Hair, and thus waste myself and melt to Tears for a Shadow? Ah, sure tis something more, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... Hanover-Cassel main line of railway. Pop. (1900) 4900. It has a handsome church with twin spires, and training colleges for schoolmasters and theological candidates. Its industries are flourishing, and embrace paper-making, agricultural machine- works, iron-founding ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... its light soft hair. Meanwhile, the horse stood still as a statue, and the page sat as still before her. In respectful silence the other three stood round. They knew, every one of them, that in that embrace to one of the two the bitterness of death was passing; and that when it was ended she would have nothing left to fear—only because she would have nothing left to hope. At length, suddenly, the lady lifted her head, and ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt

... he crushes her to his heart, or presses his lips to hers in a long kiss. He kisses her cheek once, but I don't call that anything. Why, in lots of the books, nowadays, the girls themselves cling to the men in a close embrace, or put their mouths tenderly to theirs—Well, of course, it sounds rather disgusting, but in your own earlier books, I'm sure there's more of it—of passion. Isn't ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... with sweet harmonious tints, refresh and please. Wandering at its own sweet will, the river here goes freely on its way, bubbling and brawling at the fords, gathering itself up into deep, dark lakes carved out of the softer rocks over which it flows, or dividing to embrace some willow-covered island in its course. Between Arley and Bewdley it is well stocked with grayling, dace, and that king of Severn fish, the salmon which is often taken hero; also with that "queen of fresh-water fish" the carp, speaking of which an ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall

... need of popular exposition, or the undisciplined imagination of the investigator himself, atoms have figured in the history of thought as round corpuscles of a grayish hue scurrying hither and thither, and armed with special appliances wherewith to lock in molecular embrace. Although this is nonsense, we need not on that account conclude that there are no atoms. There are atoms in precisely the sense intended by scientific law, in that the formulas computed with the aid of this concept are true of certain natural processes. ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... Simiti, as the town lay on the confines of a district renowned in the ancient annals for its mineral wealth. Herein, too, lay a great opportunity for the priest; and His Reverence rejoiced in the certain knowledge that he would embrace it. Invoking the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Ever-Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph, His Grace awaited with interest the priest's first report from ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... decided to repel all overtures from Paris (so he wrote to Dundas on 31st December), because the condition of France did not provide a solid security for a peace. He added that he desired "to express strongly the eagerness with which we should embrace any opening for general peace whenever such solid security should be attainable. This may, I think, be so expressed as to convey to the people of France that the shortest road to peace is by effecting the restoration of Royalty, and thereby to increase ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... he went; and climbing her palace walls in the night, he gave sharp punishment to that undeserving prince. But when penance was over, his noble nature was ready, like before, to embrace and be friends. Only that mean one, not able to kill him in battle, put poison in the sweets he gave at parting and Prithvi ate them, thinking no harm. So when he came on the hill near his palace the evil work was done. Helpless he, the all-conqueror, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... assured him that twelve swans flying overhead were omens of the safety of his ships, and it was only when she turned to leave him that Aeneas recognized his mother, who, notwithstanding his desire to embrace her, promptly disappeared. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... suppressed in him every fluttering of desire. He had accepted that apparent snuffing out of passion thankfully. Where, he had said to himself when he thought of this, where would he find such a woman as he could love who would find pleasure in the embrace of a marred thing like himself? Ah, no. He had seen them shrink too often from mere sight of his twisted face. The fruits of love were not for the plucking of such as he. Therefore he was glad that the urge of sex no longer ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... De Vlierbeck," said Gustave, droopingly. "But my uncle is so good to me—so extraordinarily good—that I may rightly hope for his consent. He will return to-morrow. When I embrace him I will declare all my wishes. I will say my comfort, my happiness, my life, depend on his consent. I know that he loves Lenora sincerely; for, before his departure, he even seemed to encourage my pretensions to her hand. ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience

... them a captured woman is solemnly admitted by a form of adoption into one circle of affinity, in order that she may be lawfully married into another." With the conquest of northern India by the Muhammadans, many of the Minas, being bound by no ties to Hinduism, might be expected to embrace the new and actively proselytising religion, while their robber bands would receive fugitive Muhammadans as recruits as well as Hindus. Thus probably arose a Musalman branch of the community, who afterwards became separately designated as the Meos. As ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... some day or other I will show them to you; but now we are at the camp, and I am anxious to embrace Nattee." ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... Christianity is safely vested in the free Churches. The freedom will be progressive, and may possibly embrace a vista of unfettered interpretation and application of Christian knowledge which will be as remote from the dogmatism of to-day as is our present attitude from the intolerance which kindled the Inquisition ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... stupidly dull, and Milly knew it. Their idea of entertainment was the theatre or lopping about the long steps, listening to her chatter. When they took her "buggy-riding," they might try clumsily to put their arms around her. She would pretend not to notice and lean forward slightly to avoid the embrace.... ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... embrace the occasion of a short visit of my son Major Van Buren to Albany before he goes South to drop you a few lines. Although I have not admitted it in my conversations with those who are given to croaking, and thus alarm our friends, I have nevertheless witnessed with the keenest ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... What are you doing here?" he exclaimed, as he freed himself from the embrace, sending his assailant staggering back against ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... The documents referred to embrace the reports of the president and secretary of the commission and a report of the executive committee on awards, with exhibits relating to the same. They are contained in five boxes of considerable size, which, instead of actually transmitting with this communication, I have deposited in ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland

... Philip of Macedon reckoned a horse-race won at Olympus, among his three fearful felicities. But as the inimitable Pindar often did, so is that kind most capable and most fit to awake the thoughts from the sleep of idleness, to embrace honourable enterprises. ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... possibility. Her theory of the mutability of species exceeded Darwin's; for she fancied that the vegetable world was occasionally endowed with animal life, and that the luxuriant and often poisonous vines, which choked by their rude embrace so many tenderer forms of life, waked up, under some unknown influence, into the snakes, of which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... contrived to escape a forced conversion to Christianity. The Parsis, constrained to renounce their faith, and having no means of escape, succeeded by cunning in avoiding the persecutions they were threatened with. They repaired in a body to the governor and declared themselves ready to embrace Christianity, demanding as an only favour a delay till the following Sunday before renouncing their faith, in order to take advantage of the few days of respite to worship the sacred fire and celebrate, for the last time, their festivals. The ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant

... determine this, an administration is requisite that shall embrace all the fields of social activity. Our municipalities constitute an effective basis thereto: if they are too large to allow a ready supervision, they can be divided into wards. As in primitive society, all members of the community who are of age ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... manner; both may languish and fade away under a scorching glare, yet both can take a blow without hopelessly breaking under it. The hard world, which, but for them, would be barren, cannot fathom the mystery of the soft embrace of their arms. ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore

... certainly ever appeared on the sea more astonishing than this vessel; 120,000 bushels of lentiles served for its ballast; the length of it nearly equalled all the left side of the port of Ostia; for it was sent there by the emperor Claudius. The thickness of the tree was as much as four men could embrace with ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... not "kissed the wild waves," as ingenious punctuators pretend, but, parenthetically, "kissed one another,—the wild waves being silent the while." Even fairies do not kiss waves, than which no embrace could be conceived less rewarding. Has any one remarked the echo of Marlowe here, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... benefits; whereas we English despise the Greeks and hate the Romans, turn our backs on the Scotch Episcopalians, and do but smile distantly upon our American cousins. We throw ourselves into the arms of the State, and in that close embrace forget that the Church was meant to be Catholic; or we call ourselves the Catholics, and the mere Church of England our Catholic Church; as if, forsooth, by thus confining it all to ourselves, we did not ipso facto all claim to be ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... indications of a characteristic accompanying rhythmic figure consisting of one note repeated in triplets, and now as the lovers sink on a bank of flowers in half-conscious embrace, its nervous character is enhanced by a complex syncopation. The passage beginning 131'4 is in the mystic mood of Beethoven's last sonatas and quartets. The triplet movement seems inspired by the ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight

... clear. Nevertheless, to my surprise, when she was led out, and the saddle thrown deftly across her back, she was passive. Was it possible that some drop of her old Spanish blood responded to its clinging embrace? She did not either look at it nor smell it. But when Enriquez began to tighten the "cinch" or girth, a more singular thing occurred. Chu Chu visibly distended her slender barrel to twice its dimensions; the more he pulled the more she swelled, until I was actually ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... Blood in some Tempers, by thrice speaking to them. As Fortune was in his Power, he gave himself constant Entertainment in managing the mere Followers of it with the Treatment they deserved. He would, by a skilful Cast of his Eye and half a Smile, make two Fellows who hated, embrace and fall upon each other's Neck with as much Eagerness, as if they followed their real Inclinations, and intended to stifle one another. When he was in high good Humour, he would lay the Scene with Eucrate, and on a publick Night exercise tho Passions of his whole Court. He was pleased ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... squirrel or a bird had passed. Far aloft, around the stem of the central pine, behold a perfect nest for Robinson Crusoe or King Charles! A hollow chamber of rare seclusion had been formed by the decay of some of the pine branches, which the vine had lovingly strangled with its embrace, burying them from the light of day in an aerial sepulchre of its own leaves. It cost me but little ingenuity to enlarge the interior, and open loopholes through the verdant walls. Had it ever been my fortune ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... other way. The grasp with which liquor holds a man when it turns on him, even after he has abused it for a lifetime, compared with the ascendency possessed by opium over the unfortunate habituated to it for but a single year, is as the clutch of an angry woman to the embrace of Victor Hugo's Pieuvre. A patient whom, after habitual use of opium for ten years, I met when he had spent eight years more in reducing his daily dose to half a grain of morphia, with a view to its eventual complete abandonment, once spoke to ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... absence this good means I gain, That I can catch her, Where none can watch her, In some close corner of my brain: There I embrace and kiss her; And so I both enjoy and ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... a salute was fired from a temporary fort erected for the occasion on a little rocky island in front of the town. The schooner took the water in fine style, as if eager to embrace the element which was henceforth to be subject to her. It was a moment of intense interest. The newly launched was greeted with three cheers from the company on board the Great Britain, with a salute from the ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... embrace, he kissed her many times, then, with his remaining strength, pushed her from him and motioned ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... agree to all you have now said, and must own that nothing can incline me to embrace your opinion more than the advantages I see it is attended with. I am by nature lazy; and this would be a mighty abridgment in knowledge. What doubts, what hypotheses, what labyrinths of amusement, what fields of disputation, what an ocean of false learning, may be avoided by that ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley

... an urgent request for a sub-lieutenancy was made to the Ministry, and that same night Valence left to join his regiment. He went to bid Louis farewell, embracing him half willingly, half unwillingly, while Bonaparte held his hand. The child received the embrace reluctantly. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... riches, and abjured every claim to esteem that was not founded on integrity. There was no tribunal before which I should falter in asserting the truth, and no species of martyrdom which I would not cheerfully embrace ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... made manifest to you; and, after three days, I will be with you all and we will enter Baghdad together." As he turned to depart she said, "Forget not the compact which is between me and thee," then she rose to bid[FN212] him farewell and embrace him and quench the fire of desire, so she took leave of him and, throwing her arms round his neck, wept with exceeding weeping, and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... reached out a hand in the darkness and touched, experimentally, what had seemed to be only a shapeless black blotch at the edge of light, a rod or two from the door. And instantly at his touch the shadow was galvanized into life. It reared and plunged and enveloped the slighter man in a crushing embrace and bore him over backward. With the muzzle of a revolver chafing his ear Garry managed to worry his head high enough to free his mouth and nostrils ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... long pig, and the lady will rush into the arms of conquest. Then will I possess all the Admiral's lands, and pursue the fine chase of the rabbits. And I will give dinners, such dinners, my faith! Ha! that is excellent said—embrace me—my Faith will sit at the right side of the table, and explain to the English company that such dinners could proceed from nobody except a French gentleman commingling all the knowledge of the joint with the loftier conception of the hash, the mince—the ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... the smell of meats and wines, tantalized and sickened him. Christine would come in her dancing frocks, always laughing, greedy in her mirth; but Moya, face to face, he could never see. It was torture to feel her near him, a disembodied embrace. Passionate panegyrics and hopeless adjurations he would pour out to that hovering loveliness just beyond his reach. The agony of frustration would waken him, if indeed it were sleep that dissolved his consciousness, and he would ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... acknowledge a definite system, or to introduce and consecrate those who are totally destitute of one? The religion of this society, as such, consists only in the religion of all the pious taken together, as each one beholds it in the rest—it is Infinite; no single individual can embrace it entirely, since so far as it is individual it ceases to be one, and hence no man can attain such elevation and completeness as to raise himself to its level. If any one, then, has chosen a part in it for himself, whatever it may be, were it not an absurd ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... whispered, "O my beloved!" And the gentle night-wind bore her secret in its embrace away across the valley to the dim solitudes of the woods. "Beltane!" she sighed, "love hath come into mine heart even as it came to thee, when I recked not of it. My beloved—O my beloved!" Anon she rose and stood awhile with head bowed as one that dreams, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... which extended over twenty years, he obtained a basis of facts upon which it was his ambition to build up a new exact science which should embrace mesmerism, spiritualism, and all cognate subjects. In this he was much helped by his intimate knowledge of the more intricate parts of animal physiology which treat of nerve currents and the working of the brain; for Alexis von Baumgarten was Regius Professor of Physiology at the ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... which we have already made an extract. To his friend Arno at Salzburg he writes about a little treatise on orthography, which he would have liked to have recited in person. 'Oh that I could turn the sentences into speech, and embrace my brother with a warmth that cannot be sent in a book; but since I cannot come myself I send my rough letters, that they may speak for me instead of the words of my mouth.' To the Emperor he sent a description of his life at Tours: 'In the house of St. Martin I deal out the honey ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... call and was suddenly embraced by her mother with deep tenderness. This in front of the doctor! Still more curious was the fact that Sissie, of late her mother's frigid critic, came forward and responded to the embrace almost effusively. The spectacle was really touching. It touched Mr. Prohack, who yet felt as if the floor had yielded under his feet and he was falling into the Tube railway underground. Indeed Mr. Prohack had never had such sensations as drew ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... movement or act of the mind towards an object which presents some quality on account of which we wish to obtain it. The objects of desire, therefore, embrace all those attainments and gratifications, which mankind consider worthy of being sought after. The object pursued in each particular case, is determined by the views, habits, and moral dispositions of the individual. In this manner, one person may regard an object, as above every other ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

... dearly. But I love you too well to ruin your prospects. You must not bind yourself to me just yet, dear Thurston," and meekly and gently she sought to slip from his embrace. ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... stirred in his embrace for upon the air was an approaching clamour, voices, laughter and the ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... embrace you with affection—I thank you with devout gratitude, for the many delightful moments I have enjoyed in your society. I regularly read your "London Charivari:" it is magnificent—superb! What wit—what agacerie—what exquisite badinage is contained in every line of it! You are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 11, 1841 • Various

... edition of Mr. Webster's speeches in uniform style. Such is the object of the present publication. The first two volumes contain the speeches delivered by him on a great variety of public occasions, commencing with his discourse at Plymouth in December, 1820. Three succeeding volumes embrace the greater part of the speeches delivered in the Massachusetts Convention and in the two houses of Congress, beginning with the speech on the Bank of the United States in 1816. The sixth and last volume contains the legal arguments and addresses to the jury, the diplomatic papers, and letters ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... powerful world empire of the 16th and 17th centuries ultimately yielded command of the seas to England. Subsequent failure to embrace the mercantile and industrial revolutions caused the country to fall behind Britain, France, and Germany in economic and political power. Spain remained neutral in World Wars I and II, but suffered through a devastating civil war (1936-39). In the second half of the 20th century, ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... rooted habits, in reconciling the work of the passing generation with the works of generations gone before.—The central seignory itself is merely a donjon of the tenth century, a military tower of which the enclosure has extended so as to embrace the entire territory, and of which the other buildings, more or less incorporated with it, have become prolongations.—A similar medley of constructions—disfigured by such mutilations, adjuncts, and patches, a pell-mell ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... a talk about Pierre with his old friend, who longed to embrace his son, and was profuse in his expressions of gratitude for the kindness he ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... at her face in the starlight, and oh! it had grown splendid. No longer was it that of a woman, since through it, like light through pearl, shone a soul divine. It might have been a goddess who stood beside me, for those eyes were holy and her embrace that wrapped me close was not that of the ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... this appearance of modesty be any thing else than the custom of the country; and allege that, notwithstanding so much decency and decorum, they have their peculiar modes of intriguing, and embrace every possible opportunity of putting them in practice; and that, in these intrigues, they frequently scruple not to stab the paramour they had invited to their arms, as the surest method of preventing ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... kiss and embrace to make up for that; which was only half successful. But she spoke ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... started, for instance, how this country is to be defended against a French invasion, he would rouse himself, and shew his extraordinary talents with the most powerful ability and animation. JOHNSON. 'Yet this man cut his own throat. The true strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small. Now I am told the King of Prussia will say to a servant, "Bring me a bottle of such a wine, which came in such a year; it lies in such a corner of the cellars." I would have a man great in great things, and elegant ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... her long railway journey, deep-set hazel eyes, a delicate, almost porcelain-like complexion, and a sensitive, delightfully shaped mouth. Her figure was small and dainty, and just at that moment she had an appearance of helplessness which was almost childlike. Nora, after a vigorous embrace, led ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... falls became more distinct, while to the right, away down below, the river swirled under the groaning ice and sped past wildly, towards the east and the south, as if seeking to save itself from the embrace of ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... public property, to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... betimes like all old men in good health, had heard his entrance, and had made haste to climb, as quickly as his old legs permitted, the stairs to the upper story where Marius lived, in order to embrace him, and to question him while so doing, and to find out where ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... not exactly the hero; he would have been the hero had he not been hanged in the last act. But for that he was rather a nice young man, full of sentiment and not ashamed of it. From the scaffold he pleaded for leave to embrace his mother just once more before he died. It was a pretty idea. The hangman himself was touched. The necessary leave was granted him. He descended the steps and flung his arms round the sobbing old lady, and—bit off her nose. After that he told her why he had bitten off her nose. It appeared ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome

... a rush, and a smile like the dawn of an eternal day overspread his countenance; the dream was nowhere, and the child was in his heart. He stretched out his arms to her, the child stretched out hers to him, and in five minutes they were both asleep, each in the other's embrace. ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald

... of the poles of one's own mental states by the operation of the art of Polarization, the phenomena of Mental Influence, in its manifold phases, shows us that the principle may be extended so as to embrace the phenomena of the influence of one mind over that of another, of which so much has been written and taught of late years. When it is understood that Mental Induction is possible, that is that mental states ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates

... was not renewed. I felt too happy with Minnie's love to care much about anything else; my ambition melted away before it, and I looked forward to the time when I might embrace her as my own. ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... bright with happiness, and he would cry out in his dreadful whistling voice, "Ah, you didn't know I was watching you!" and run across undoubtingly to her arms. There would be real gratitude in the embrace she gave him. His trust in her had so changed the moment that she need not ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... had been so sudden that Trokoff had not been able to defend himself. He and Fandor struggled, twisted, writhed, in a terrible embrace; panting, livid, with ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... war. Some say Germany is exhausted and beaten, others say she is flushed with victory, and with enormous reserves of men, food, and ammunition. I try to believe all the good I hear, and when even children or fools tell me the war will soon be over, I want to embrace them—I don't care whether they are talking nonsense or not. Sometimes I seem to see a great hushed cathedral, and ourselves returning thanks for Peace and Victory, and the vision is too much for me. I must either work or be chloroformed till ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... or such a miraculous conversion, as it might seem. Here, too, there is no derivation of object from object, but an alternative for the mind. As M. Benda points out, natural interests and sympathies may expand indefinitely, so as to embrace a family, a nation, or the whole animate universe; we might even be chiefly occupied with liberal pursuits, such as science or music; the more we laboured at these things and delighted in them, the less ready should we be for renunciation and detachment. ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana

... going closer to embrace Dorothy, but the ladies became alarmed; they thought that their beautiful cat was going to steal out of the house. So they called, and a maid with a white cap ran and caught the Persian princess, and carried her back to the drawing-room. The ladies thought ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins

... God planned long in advance for the redemption and deliverance of the human race. Hence his wisdom led him to embrace in the effects of this death sentence all of the human family, all of the offspring of Adam, so that in due time he might redeem them all through the sacrifice of one. (Galatians 3:22) The sentence against Adam and the resulting effects upon all of ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford

... more like a hero than a fugitive. Farewell, my sister; farewell, ye gentle maidens; fare ye well, and cherish my precious Miriam. One embrace, sweet sister,' and he bent down and whispered, 'Tell the good Bostenay not to spare his gold, for I have a deep persuasion that, ere a year shall roll its heavy course, I shall return and make our masters here pay for this ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... render nearly as trying on earth. She had died, as she had lived, impenitent and only crying for the foreigner who had seduced her, while he was then lying, had she but known it, in the lap of his first mistress, the sea, who, perhaps from jealousy at his straying, had taken him forcibly into her embrace on the same night that Loveday the younger ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse

... the primaeval waters completes the picture of chaos in the cuneiform account. From the popular side, the commingling corresponds to the Tohu wa Bohu of the Book of Genesis, but for the Babylonian theologians, this embrace of Apsu and Tiamat becomes a symbol of 'sexual' union.[697] As the outcome of this union, the gods are produced. This dependence of the gods upon Apsu and Tiamat is but vaguely indicated. Another theory appears to have existed according to ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... had always had great zeal for the conversion of souls. Agitated by that sacred fire that burned without consuming his heart which fed it, he worked in his own person, as much as he who did most, so that all the heathens of that distant archipelago should embrace, believe, and reverence the faith of the true God, in whose name only is found salvation. For that purpose he went not only once into the highest peaks of Zambales, in order to illumine their darkness with the Catholic light or to lose his life in so heroic ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... was as it should have been. There was no doubt about her close embrace of her mother, her happiness at seeing her. She did not remove her gloves, however, and after she had put Grace in a chair and perched herself on the arm of it, there was a little pause. Each was preparing to tell something, each hesitated. Because Grace's task ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... flown to him and enveloped him, mud and all, in her gauzy embrace—an embrace from which Mac ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... bonnets of their own handiwork, and sometimes with scarlet cardinals lightly flung over their shoulders, sprang over the wagon-thills to the ground. Now and then the more remote dwellers came on horseback, each Jack with his Gill on a pillion behind, and holding him with a proper and dignified embrace. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... destination. He was, however, unable to make a direct passage, as he had in the prosecution of his business first to visit several other places, still, as no other means of getting where we wished to go were likely to occur, my father was glad to embrace the opportunity thus offered. We had been for some time at sea when a fearful storm arose, which compelled us to run before it under bare poles, and carried us a long way out of our course. The vessel received also considerable damage, ...
— Mary Liddiard - The Missionary's Daughter • W.H.G. Kingston

... hero, a middle-aged woman who adores him despite the presence of her husband, himself called throughout Baron Brinthall, a style surely more common in pantomimic circles than in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair; and the incidents embrace both murder and suicide. Moreover there is "plenty of conversation," and the intrigue moves sufficiently quickly (if jerkily) to keep one curious about the next page. But having very willingly admitted so much ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various

... very rich in its comfort. "I am the resurrection." This is one of the wonderful present tenses of Christian hope. Martha had spoken of a resurrection far away. "I am the resurrection," Jesus declared. It was something present, not remote. His words embrace the whole blessed truth of immortal life. "Whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die." There is no death for those who are in Christ. The body dies, but the person lives on. The resurrection may be in the future, but really there is no break in the life of a believer in ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller



Words linked to "Embrace" :   cuddle, lock, interlock, clinch, clasp, clench, plow, include, embracing, espouse, bosom, take up, embracement, hold, grip, adopt, comprehend, clutches, sweep up, adoption, deal, hook on, espousal, clutch, handle, grasp, acceptation, nestle, latch on, snuggle, accept, encompass, seize on, acceptance, squeeze, inclusion, treat, address, fasten on, cover



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