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Foiled   /fɔɪld/   Listen
Foiled

adjective
1.
Disappointingly unsuccessful.  Synonyms: defeated, disappointed, discomfited, frustrated, thwarted.  "Their foiled attempt to capture Calais" , "Many frustrated poets end as pipe-smoking teachers" , "His best efforts were thwarted"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Foiled" Quotes from Famous Books



... rapidly, had obtained great results in a very short time; it would have been less prompt, less complete, had it not been attacked. Every refusal became for it the cause of a new success; it foiled intrigue, resisted authority, triumphed over force; and at the point of time we have reached, the whole edifice of absolute monarchy had fallen to the ground, through the errors of its chiefs. The 17th of June had witnessed the disappearance of the three orders, and the states- general changed ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... my tears augment: Rocks, woods, hills, caves, dales, meads, brooks, answer me; Infected minds infect each thing they see. If I could think how these my thoughts to leave, Or thinking still, my thoughts might have good end; If rebel sense would reason's law receive; Or reason foiled, would not in vain contend: Then might I think what thoughts were best to think: Then might I wisely swim, or ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... The Convention had declined to pass an ordinance of secession; yet there was a strong effort made by Governor Jackson to preserve, at least, an armed neutrality. Captain Lyon foiled this attempt. He broke up Camp Jackson, saved the United States arsenal at St. Louis, and defeated Colonel Marmaduke at Booneville (June 17). General Sigel (se-gel), however, having been defeated ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... "he's a shrewd and daring fellow—a perfect demon. He doesn't remain idle. If we are working, he's at work too. No matter what side I turn, I find him on the defensive. He foiled you, papa, in your effort to obtain a clue concerning Gustave's identity; and he made me appear a fool in arranging that little comedy at the Hotel de Mariembourg. His diligence has been wonderful. He has hitherto been in advance of us everywhere, and this fact explains the failures ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... August 20th, after nine days' fighting, in which the whites had but two killed and four wounded; nor was the loss of the Indians much heavier. [Footnote: De Quindre reported to Hamilton that, though foiled, he had but two men killed and three wounded. In Haldimand MSS., Hamilton to Haldimand, October 15, 1778. Often, however, these partisan leaders merely reported the loss in their own particular party of savages, taking no account of the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... spring, Charley was quicker. He dug his spur cruelly into his little pony's flank. With a neigh of pain the animal leaped forward. For a moment there was a tangle of striking hoofs and wriggling coils of the foiled reptile, while Charley leaning over in his saddle struck with the butt-end of his riding whip at the writhing coils. Though it seemed an eternity to the helpless watchers it was really only a few seconds ere the pony sprang away from its loathsome enemy and Charley with difficulty reined ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... opposed Burr during the contest for the Presidency, again separated from his party, and earnestly denounced him. Burr was defeated by an enormous majority. His disappointment and anger at being again foiled by Hamilton prompted him to the most notorious and unfortunate act ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... that particular disaster at sea that they did not come to blows. It was all threats, all a terribly effective feint, a sham from beginning to end, planned by the tremendous disdain of the Dark Powers whose real terrors, always on the verge of triumph, are perpetually foiled by the steadfastness of men. I asked, after waiting for a while, "Well, what happened?" A futile question. I knew too much already to hope for the grace of a single uplifting touch, for the favour of hinted madness, of shadowed horror. "Nothing," he said. "I meant ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... to admonish Julia about the danger of associating with "The Daisy." Another instance was that of the bank-messenger, a person of such self-possession and detachment that he contrived to deliver a moral address while holding one foiled villain at the point of his revolver and gripping the other's wrist ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various

... fully tried Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled In all his wiles, defeated ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... the enemy during the pursuit to rally, but the enthusiastic pursuit foiled all such efforts. Our troops were subject to artillery fire of solid shot, shell, and grape during the pursuit, and we reached the intrenchments of the Nineteenth Army Corps (which were captured in the morning) ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... determined to have some explanation from his mother. But she foiled him. The moment she saw what he meant, she turned away, listened in silence, and spoke with a decision that ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... But now it seemed too hatefully like accusing when she could not defend herself. And there is another element that I am bound to acknowledge. There was an element of jealousy of Anne Bullard. Both of us had tried to help Miss Emily. She had foiled my attempt in her own endeavor, a mistaken endeavor, I felt. But there was now to be no blemish on my efforts. I would no longer pry or question or watch. It ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... history there seems a ruddy emblazonry on every page, a hue shed from behind the visible, the soul dropping its red tears of fire over hopes for ever dissolving, noble ambitions for ever foiled. Always on the eve of success starts up some fatal figure weaponed with the keys of the hereafter, brandishing more especially the key of the place of torment, warning most particularly those who regard ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... all ban? Why are lords, and why are slaves And the most of gentle man Clipt and harried to their graves? Foiled and ruined, masses die That one fair and noble be. Why are all not Masters? Why So unjust ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall

... a better for his "Fairy Queen" had his action been finished, or been one; and Milton if the Devil had not been his hero, instead of Adam; if the giant had not foiled the knight, and driven him out of his stronghold, to wander through the world with his lady-errant; and if there had not been more machining persons ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... laughed in his face. He tried every means he could think of to have the hat reach its destination. Once he stopped the Court Chamberlain on the street, only to be rebuked for his pains. Another time he waylaid a peer, as he left the House of Lords, and was threatened with arrest. Foiled in all his attempts, the cracked-brained old fellow impatiently awaited the wedding ceremony. At last the great day arrived. All the bells of old London were ringing blithely as the gilded coach, drawn by ten white horses, deposited the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... its authority. The truth of this fact is very well known by parties, and they consequently strive to make out a majority whenever they can. If they have not the greater number of voters on their side, they assert that the true majority abstained from voting; and if they are foiled even there, they have recourse to the body of those persons who had no ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... reply. The Honorable William waited for a moment, and then put back the packages he had flung on the table. He looked his surprise; he could not understand how he had been foiled with ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... have been a bitter moment for him. The fruits of his long care and watching were, in a moment, snatched away, and, just when he hoped that the enemy, foiled and exhausted, were about to return to England, he found that they had surmounted the obstacles he had deemed impregnable, and were calmly awaiting him on a fair field of battle. One who saw him said that he rode towards ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... the faces of the throng hurrying along the sidewalks and thought how strange it was that none of them even remotely realized that an attempt to wreck the "Lark" was to be foiled within a couple of hours. The automobiles passed unnoticed in the everlasting flow of traffic. Tomorrow morning, he thought, these people would read of what had occurred and hail Gibson as a hero. The ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... have you seen of what awaits Your fevered glimpse of a democracy Confused and foiled with an equality Not equal to the envy it creates, That you see not how near you are the gates Of an old king who listens fearfully To you that are outside and are to be The noisy lords ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... (and is as much like it as the camel produced from the German professor's self-consciousness must have been to a real camel) there is an underplot of an amazing kind. The wicked undergraduate, notwithstanding that he has the advantage of being a baronet, is foiled in his attempt to win the affections of a young woman in humble life, and the virtuous hero of the story recommends her to the consideration of ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... character of his Lordship. The assignation was prevented. Lord Ruthven next day merely sent his servant to notify his complete assent to a separation; but did not hint any suspicion of his plans having been foiled by ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori

... hundreds of trappers and traders and scores of trading-posts, controlled the rich fur business of Canada and the northwest. We have seen how, years after the events which we are now narrating, the agents of the company tried to save Oregon for England and how Marcus Whitman foiled them. Astor's plan, in outline, was to render American trade independent of the Hudson Bay Company by establishing a chain of trading-posts from the great lakes to the Pacific, to plant a central depot at the mouth of the Columbia river, and to acquire ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... crime had been alleged, much less established; therefore Jesus ought to have been let go. But Annas treated Him as a criminal, and handed Him over 'bound,' to be formally tried before the man who had just been foiled in his attempt to play the inquisitor. What a hideous mockery of legal procedure! How well the pair, father-in-law and son- in-law, understood each other! What a confession of a foregone conclusion, evidence or no ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... first onslaught, which was intended to stampede the caravan, and at once capture it. This was done before daybreak. Foiled in the attempt, they are now laying siege to it, having surrounded it on all sides at a distance just beyond range of the rifles of those besieged. Their line forms the circumference of a circle of which ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... Asked for your prayers, and joined in them his own. I knew the man. I see him, as he stands With gifts of mercy in his outstretched hands; A kindly light within his gentle eyes, Sad as the toil in which his heart grew wise; His lips half parted with the constant smile That kindled truth, but foiled the deepest guile; His head bent forward, and his willing ear Divinely patient right and wrong to hear: Great in his goodness, humble in his state, Firm in his purpose, yet not passionate, He led his people with a tender ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... of old, Through Boldrewood the chase he led, By his loved huntsman's arrow bled - Ytene's oaks have heard again Renewed such legendary strain; For thou hast sung how he of Gaul, That Amadis so famed in hall, For Oriana foiled in fight The necromancer's felon might; And well in modern verse hast wove Partenopex's mystic love: Hear, then, attentive to my lay, A knightly tale ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... my dear boy, but everybody will want to see the heroic boy who foiled a dynamite fiend and saved the life of ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger

... work which was at his hand. The sapphire waters of the South had quite lost their sparkle and enchantment. Here, here, was the place of life! The exhilaration of his task, its importance, the glow of thankfulness when some real advantage was won, a plot foiled, a scheme carried to success—these matters were all banished from his mind. Even the war-risk of it was forgotten. He thought with envy of the men in trenches. Yet the purpose of his yacht was long since known to the ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... cravat round his neck, a long black coat down to his ancles, with black worsted stockings and gold-headed cane. I must say they do not look over and above agreeable, and as they hate all innovations few have learnt French, so that I have been foiled in most of ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... important. In the Turkestan of to-day the majority of the people follow the prophet of Mecca. Russia has absorbed most of the khanates, and has tried more than once to encroach on portions belonging to China. In one instance she was foiled and compelled to disgorge by the courage of Viceroy Chang, a story which I reserve for the sequel. The coveted region was Ili, and Russia's pretext for crossing the [Page 62] boundary was the chronic state of warfare in which the ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... our public assembly-rooms and houses we have almost succeeded in excluding pure air. It took the race ages to build dwellings that would keep out rain; it has taken longer to build houses air-tight, but we are on the eve of success. We are only foiled by the ill-fitting, insincere work of the builders, who build for a day, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... foiled in his amiable intention of drawing confusion on the head of somebody, subsides into a grunt and his easy-chair. To have gone to all this trouble for nothing, to have invited secretly this man, who interests him not ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... beside you at that feast, For ere a seedling of my golden tree Pushed off its petals to get room to grow, I stripped the boughs to make an April gaud And wreathe a spendthrift garland for my hair. But mine is not the failure God deplores; For I of old am beauty's votarist, Long recreant, often foiled and led astray, But resolute at last to seek her there Where most she does abide, and crave with tears That she assoil me of my blemishment. Low looms her singing face to point the way, Pendulous, blanched with longing, shedding flame Of silver on the brown ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody

... firm fingers—another instant and it would have been buried deep in my heart, when I felt a powerful grasp on my wrist, and a strong arm struggling with mine forced the dagger from my hand. Savagely angry at being thus foiled in my desperate intent, I staggered back a few paces and sullenly stared at my rescuer. He was a tall man, clad in a dark overcoat bordered with fur; he looked like a wealthy Englishman or American travelling for pleasure. His features were fine and commanding; ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... than when we use it to bind upon ourselves, as the permanent limitations of our progress, the failures and faults of the past. 'Forget the things that are behind.' Your old fragmentary goodness, your old foiled aspirations, your old frequent failures—cast them ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... been taken on General Howe's staff for the present. Foiled in his endeavor to call out Washington by any maneuver, and feeling that another battle was quite impossible and useless in the extreme cold, which was more bitter than for years, he too, gave himself over to diversion, and looked leniently on the frivolities ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... will be foiled. The enemy will succeed in penetrating the impregnable fortress; each foe has his special tactics, contrived with appalling skill. See, an egg is inserted by means of a probe beside the torpid larva; ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... the supreme command, Cordova marched his army, which had just compelled the Carlists to raise the siege of Bilboa, in the direction of the Ebro. Meanwhile the Carlists, foiled in Biscay, were concentrating their forces in central Navarre. As if to make up for their recent disappointment, they had resolved upon the attack of a town, less wealthy and important, it is true, than Bilboa, but which would still have been a most advantageous acquisition, giving them, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... Marquis of Winchester, the brave defender of his house at Basing, had been made prisoner by Cromwell at the storming of that house in 1645. Waller had been foiled in his attempt on this place in the year ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... or triumph, woe or pleasure, That rings Mondego's ravaged shores around; The thundering cry of hosts with conquest crowned, The female shriek, the ruined peasant's moan, The shout of captives from their chains unbound, The foiled oppressor's deep and sullen groan, A Nation's choral ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott

... chariots, splendidly arrayed! The standards—this where dragons were displayed, And that where snakes round tortoises were coiled— Terrific flew. "Northward our host," he said, "Heaven's son sends forth to tame the Heen-yun wild." Soon by this awful chief would all their tribes be foiled. ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... noble effort, indeed! Why, the man has foiled me in the two things in which I prided myself most,—wrestling and running. I never saw such a greyhound in ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... Dewy with Springtide's night-drops as they pass Grieving,—if aught that's modish ever grieves,— Over the unreturning chance. Alas! Their hopes are all cut down ere falls the grass. That with corn-harvest might have seen full blow. See how foiled Shopdom flies, a huddled mass Of disappointment, hurrying from the foe, Who all their Season's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various

... his career as a birdman and had many adventures over the Great Lakes, and how he foiled the plans of ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... both of patronage and of bel-esprit, Lady Angelica was equally surprised and mortified to find herself foiled at her own arms, by a girl whom nobody knew. She changed her manoeuvres—she thought she could show Miss Caroline Percy, that, whatever might be her abilities, her knowledge, or her charms, these must all submit to the superior power of fashion. Caroline having ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... National Gallery. You long to behold the masterpieces of art, to have your imagination quickened and thrilled by the glories of form and color, to look once more on some favorite picture which touches your nature to its finest issues. But again you are foiled. You desire to visit a library, full of books you cannot buy, and there commune with the great minds who have left their thoughts to posterity. But you are frustrated again. You are cheated out of your natural right, and treated less like a man than ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... Foiled in his attempt to get out of the room by the way he had come, Max moved slowly to the left, and at the distance of only a couple of feet from the door found the angle of the wall, and began to creep along, still feeling with hands and feet most carefully, ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... foe. Under the impetus of the charge the victorious troops broke against the barrier, but it held firm. That it did so hold was one of the providential occurrences of the day. So, at last, the Hilltops were foiled and baffled. Their victory was not complete. Pen stood on the top step at the entrance, his face smeared with blood, and angrily declared his determination, by one means or another, to hunt the enemy out from their place ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... born of the Darknesses, Which pusheth him. Mighty of appetite, Sinful, and strong is this!—man's enemy! As smoke blots the white fire, as clinging rust Mars the bright mirror, as the womb surrounds The babe unborn, so is the world of things Foiled, soiled, enclosed in this desire of flesh. The wise fall, caught in it; the unresting foe It is of wisdom, wearing countless forms, Fair but deceitful, subtle as a flame. Sense, mind, and reason—these, O Kunti's Son! Are booty for it; in its play with these ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold

... language better specimens of pure narrative, better examples of the power of telling a story and of calling up action so that the reader cannot help but see it, than Mark Twain's account of the Shepardson-Grangerford feud, and his description of the shooting of Boggs by Sherbourn and of the foiled attempt to lynch ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... not make him (Duncan) his enemy. He (M'Rae) was obliged to him for the house and position he occupied, but the same hand that did could undo. At this juncture the M'Rae had simply rung the bell, and the ex-poacher had to retire foiled, but threatening still. It was on that same day I confronted him and told him all I knew. Then I showed him the spurious ring, which, as I placed it on my finger, even he could not tell from the original. Even this did not overawe him, ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... persons having demands upon him were to present their claims, in person, upon a specified day. During the night preceding the day so appointed, the Duke and his train very noiselessly took their departure, without notice or beat of drum. By this masterly generalship his unhappy creditors were foiled upon the very eve of their anticipated triumph; the heavy accounts which had been contracted on the faith of the King and the Governor, remained for the most part unpaid, and many opulent and respectable families were reduced to beggary. Such was the consequence of the unlimited ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... obscured by the vestry, has an exquisite window above, consisting of a richly traceried arch placed within a curvilinear triangle, beneath which is a splendid range of niches, and, beneath them again, a gorgeous range of sedilia and piscinae."[9] The original wall arcading had cinque-foiled heads on the south side, and trefoiled heads on the north; but all these had been cut away before the restoration began, probably at the time when the walls were covered with panels to make the chapel more suitable ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins

... many steps he had made to his present position—all within eighteen months from the marriage. Those who intended to keep him from being useful to the Queen, from the fear that he might ambitiously touch upon her prerogatives, have been completely foiled; they thought they had prevented Her Majesty from yielding anything of importance to him by creating distrust through imaginary alarm. The Queen's good sense, however, has seen that the Prince has no other object in all he seeks but a means to Her Majesty's good. The Court from highest to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... up the point, foiled by her evasions, disarmed by her flattery; and was obliged to rest satisfied with the conviction that where the present pleasure of those she loved was at stake, her kindness did sometimes ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... was but too likely to end in making a fool of himself about her. However, he must speak, to support his own character as a man of the world;—it would never do to knock under to a country girl in this way;—she might go and boast of it all over the town;—beside, foiled or not, he would not give in without ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... distant voices of his pursuers sounded again in his ears and the little animal bade him enter and hide himself. As the Navajo entered the Kleyatcini passed out and closed the door behind him. The fugitive was not long in his place of concealment when the clamor made by the foiled pursuers was again heard, but it ceased sooner than usual. It was not yet sunset when the little animal returned to announce that the Ute had gone from the neighborhood. When the Navajo stepped out of the hole in the rock, Kleyatcini pointed out to him the mountains in which his home lay and ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews

... Foiled in their hope of winning the territorial legislature, the free-State settlers in Kansas resolved upon a hazardous course. Believing the legislature an illegal body, they called a convention to draft a constitution with which they proposed to apply for admission to the Union as a free State. ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... leaders—their masses are gapped with our grape— Backward they reel like the wave, like the wave flinging forward again, Flying and foiled at the last by the handful they could not subdue; And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... of his opponent, but it only scarified the man's knuckles on the Crusader's helmet. He tried another on the ribs, but the folds of chain-mail rendered that abortive. Then the burglar essayed strangulation, but there again the folds of mail foiled him. During these unavailing efforts the unconscious Dick came in for a few accidental raps and squeezes as ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne

... And so was foiled the attempts of the learned anthropologists to hold converse with these rudimentary beings. The alphabet of such elaborate devisings went for naught. Never did the twelve persons in the state of primitive culture get further than the letter ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... fretted, the fawn had been critically examining the fence to find egress, seeing which the children dried their tears, and made for him again; and at length the graceful creature, bewildered by the din, and foiled by numbers, was forced to surrender himself after another vigorous scramble, in which the basket of potatoes was overturned, and the corn scattered in delightful disorder, and was borne by Tom in triumph to the cabin, accompanied by the ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... "And therefore easily foiled," said Father Phil; "How that pretty creature, with the turn of a word and a curl of her lip, upset him that time! Oh! what a powerful thing a woman's smile is, doctor? I often congratulate myself that my calling puts all such mundane follies and attractions out of my way, when I see and know what ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... their midst, which gave a wonderful expression of strength and will to the beautiful face. The rather short profile was very dignified, the nose continuing the line of the brow with absolute rectitude, as in a Greek statue. A deep dimple under the lower lip foiled it up delightfully; and from time to time, when she was absorbed by a particular idea, she bit this lower lip with her white upper teeth, making the blood run in tiny red veins under the delicate skin. In her supple form there was no little pride, with gravity also, which ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... Foiled so far, Mr. Bowmore began to start difficulties next. Had they money enough for the journey? Percy touched his pocket, and answered shortly, "Plenty." Had they passports? Percy sullenly showed a letter. "There is the necessary voucher from a magistrate," he said. "The consul at Dover will give ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... and his colleagues to shelve the Duke of York was foiled. On another and weightier matter he had his way. Coburg's conduct had been so languid and unenterprising as to lead to urgent demands for his recall; and it was understood that the Emperor Francis would take the command, with Mack as Chief-of-Staff ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... notwithstanding all opposition from pretended friends and professed foes, he was by the Lord's strength, enabled to remain unshaken to the last: for, though he was nigh tripped, yet with the faithful man he was seldom foiled, never vanquished.—May the Lord enable many in this apostate, insidious, and lukewarm generation to emulate the martyr in imitation of him who now inherits the promise, Be thou faithful unto the death, and I will give thee a crown ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... months later at another Jerusalem feast called the Feast of the Dedication, comes a second hotly impulsive riotous attempt at stoning, and then an attempt to arrest, both foiled by the restraint of Jesus' mere presence and personal power.[38] And another connecting link traces His going away beyond the Jordan River, where the crowds gather to Him, and are ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon

... scared than ever, they strove to clamber out of the gully into which they had recklessly sprung, but, foiled in these attempts, they kicked, plunged, and reared,—trampling heedlessly over the human form lying helpless among the shattered fragments of the sledge,—till tired out at last, they stood motionless, panting with ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... on Mount Tifata, where, while awaiting the arrival of re-enforcements from Carthage, he was at hand to support his partisans in Campania and oppose the Roman generals in that province. But his attempts on Cumae and Neapolis were foiled, and even after he had been joined by a force from Carthage (very inferior, however, to what he had expected), he sustained a repulse before Nola, which was magnified by the Romans into a defeat. As the winter ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... Mr. Getz felt himself so foiled. Never before had any one subject in any degree to his authority so neatly eluded a reckoning at his hands. A tingling sensation ran along his arm and he had to restrain his impulse to lift it, grasp this ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin

... to make their selection from this kind of women, so that they multiply and produce indeterminate sexes to whom life is a torture. Fortunately, however, they perish in the end, either from discord with real life, or from the irresistible revolt of their suppressed instincts, or from foiled hopes of possessing the man. The type is tragical, offering us the spectacle of a desperate struggle against nature. It is also tragical as a Romantic inheritance dispersed by the prevailing Naturalism, which wants nothing but happiness: ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg

... Verzenay's efforts to promote an entente cordiale were lamentably foiled. When the English mustered strong, they would immediately form themselves into a hollow square, the weakest in the centre, and so defy the assaults of the enemy. Now and then a daring Gaul would attempt the adventure of the Enchanted Castle, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... discovery; Roland, who felt how much success depended on his own address and boldness, summoned together his whole presence of mind, and if he found his spirits flag for a moment, cast his eye upon Catherine, whom he thought he had never seen look so beautiful.—"I may be foiled," he thought, "but with this reward in prospect, they must bring the devil to aid them ere they cross me." Thus resolved, he stood like a greyhound in the slips, with hand, heart, and eye intent upon making and seizing opportunity for the ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... cold before repenting the blame of keeping him out of heaven would be Elspeth's. But the last word was muffled, for the blankets were tucked about him as he spoke, and two motherly little arms gave him the embrace they wanted to withhold. Foiled again, he kicked off the bed-clothes and said: "I tell ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... whispering 'yea' in the dark, Puritans answering 'yea' in the dark! 'Yea' like an arrow shot true to his mark, Darts through the tyrannous heart of Denial. Patience and Labor and solemn-souled Trial, Foiled, still beginning, Soiled, but not sinning, Toil through the stertorous death of the Night, Toil when wild brother-wars new-dark the Light, Toil, and forgive, and ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... the terms of peace had been announced, Russia interfered, securing the help of France and Germany to bully Japan. The combination met with no opposition; the government played jiujutsu, and foiled expectations by unlooked-for yielding. Japan had long ceased to feel uneasy about her own military power. Her reserve strength is probably much greater than has ever been acknowledged, and her educational system, with its twenty-six thousand schools, is an enormous drilling- ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... fortunes, for the pleasure of making others laugh? How slowly would he believe that there are men who would rather lose a legacy than the reputation of a distich; who think it less disgrace to want money than repartee; whom the vexation of having been foiled in a contest of raillery is sometimes sufficient to deprive of sleep; and who would esteem it a lighter evil to miss a profitable bargain by some accidental delay, than not to have thought of a smart reply till the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... officer was none other than the man who, some days before, had placed in Hal's hands dispatches for General Von Kluck—papers that, through Hal's bravery, had been turned over to General French, and had thus foiled the coup planned ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes

... live the people! How they lived! and boiled And bubbled in the cauldron of the street: How the young blustered, nor the old recoiled, And what a thunderous stir of tongues and feet Trod flat the palpitating bells and foiled The joy-guns of their echo, shattering it! How down they pulled the Duke's arms everywhere! How up they set new cafe-signs, to show Where patriots might sip ices in pure air— (The fresh paint smelling somewhat)! To and fro How marched the civic guard, and stopped to stare ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... the first place, it will surely be taken from us utterly. This is a providential opportunity to preach truth in the very camp of the enemy.' But who got it up, God or the devil?... Look over the history of the world, and in nine cases out of ten we shall find that Satan, after being foiled in his arts to stop a great moral enterprise, has finally succeeded by diverting the reformers from the main point to a collateral, and that too just at the moment when such diversion brought ruin. Now, even ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... attempts to obtain human souls the Devil is frequently foiled by the superior cunning of mortals. Once, he agreed to build a house for a peasant in exchange for the peasant's soul; but if the house were not finished before cockcrow, the contract was to be null and void. Just as the Devil was putting on the last tile the ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... following night the British tacked several times, to keep their position to windward. At daylight of January 25th, the two fleets were to the westward of Nevis; the British near the island, the French abreast, but several miles to leeward. Foiled in his first spring by an unexpected accident, Hood had not relinquished his enterprise, and now proposed to seize the anchorage quitted by the French, so establishing himself there,—as he had proposed to Graves to do in the Chesapeake,—that he could not ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... pause, without wonder. We are like people who have lost their memories on the way to a feast, and our steps, in which is only dimly felt the remembrance of a purpose, take us nowhither. We loiter in musty waiting-rooms, are frustrated by mobs, and foiled by an eternal clamour. We have forgotten the feast and occupy ourselves in all manner of foolish and irrelevant ways. Only now and again, struck by the absurdity of our occupations, we grope after our lost consciousness and feel somehow that somewhere out beyond is our real destination, ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... England still clung to him on sectional grounds. News of these efforts of course reached Adams and increased his bitterness against Hamilton, whom he regarded as chiefly responsible for them. Adams had a deep spite against members of his Cabinet for the way in which they had foiled him about Hamilton's commission, but for his own convenience in routine matters he had retained them, although debarring them from his confidence. In the spring of 1800 he decided to rid himself of men whom he regarded as "Hamilton's spies." The ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... the Eboe people. Seeing the few things of the white men in the marketplace, they made a rush to the place to recover them. The natives, who were Kirree people, stood ready for them, armed with swords, daggers, and guns; and the savage Eboes finding themselves foiled in the attempt, retreated to their canoes, without risking an attack, although the Landers fully expected to have been spectators of a furious ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... braves set out upon their trail. As their principal chief or partisan had lost some relations in the recent fight, and had sworn to kill the first whites on his path, it was supposed that their intention was to attack the party, should a favorable opportunity offer; or, if they were foiled in their principal object by the vigilance of Mr. Fitzpatrick, content themselves with stealing horses and cutting off stragglers. These had been gone but a few days ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... have never seen the day; and the emotion that always fluttered round my heart in that dark shrubbery burst forth in words. "But so much is true," I cried, "that I have met the devil in these woods, and seen him foiled here. Blessed be God that we escaped with life—blessed be God that one stone yet stands upon another in the walls of Durrisdeer! And, O! Mr. Alexander, if ever you come by this spot, though it was a hundred years hence, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... say?" the butler shouted, foaming at the mouth and trying to seize Germain, who foiled him by drawing his sword. "Jacques! Jovite! Constant! 'Lexandre! here; put a canaille pig out who ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... one-hued with her hair: For the vales and the green high places of earth Hold nothing so fair, And the depths of the sea bear no such birth 130 Of the manifold births they bear. Too well, too well was the great stake worth A strife divine for the Gods to judge, A crowned God's triumph, a foiled God's grudge, Though the loser be strong and the victress wise Who played long since for so large a prize, The fruitful immortal anointed adored Dear city of men without master or lord, Fair fortress and fostress of sons born free, ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... a mastery of the south the Mercian King found grounds for a hope that Northern Britain would also yield to his sway. But the dream of a single England was again destined to be foiled. Fallen as Northumbria was from its old glory, it still remained a great power. Under the peaceful reigns of Ecgfrith's successors, Aldfrith and Ceolwulf, their kingdom became the literary centre of Western Europe. No schools ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... wall, where the Turk caught it skilfully; but when Rob held out his hand for the tube the scoundrel only laughed at him and began to scramble to his feet in order to beat a retreat. Chance, however, foiled this disgraceful treachery, for in his hurry the Turk allowed the tube to slip from his grasp, and it rolled off the wall and fell upon the sand at Rob's ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum

... I hoped the impossible would have stopped her, but she caught at the practicable, and foiled me. ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... Association to summon a meeting, which was duly held. It turned out to be a demonstration in favour of Forster rather than the Government, and the attempt to crush independence of opinion in the Liberal ranks was thus signally foiled. I do not know who the member of the Cabinet was who was responsible for this manoeuvre, but whoever he may have been—and I have my suspicions upon that point—he had little reason to congratulate himself upon the result of his strategy. For a time the incident caused a certain ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... you,' coolly replied the other—'you have been deceived and foiled. In deserting Mr. Sydney to join your bloody standard, I acted in accordance with a plan which I had formed to entrap and conquer you. I know that as long as I remained the professed friend of Mr. Sydney, you would view me with distrust ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... La Boderie, the French Ambassador, complains of the king's frequent absences; but James did not wish too close an intercourse with one who was making a French party about Prince Henry, and whose sole object was to provoke a Spanish war: the king foiled the French intriguer; but has incurred his contempt for being "timid and irresolute." James's cautious neutrality was no ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... completed in England. The miniature Crystal Palace at New York afforded a convincing proof of what I have stated; for although it was little more than a quarter of the size of the one in Hyde Park, they were utterly foiled in their endeavours to prepare it in time. In revenge for that failure, the Press tried to console the natives by enlarging on the superior attraction of hippodromes, ice-saloons, and penny shows, with which it was surrounded, and contrasting them with the "gloomy grandeur" of the palace ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... could not conceive of a spiritual devotion, and something had altered all Stepan's ways. From the moment he returned to Paris until he had left she had tried and been unable to invoke any response in him, and she had felt like a foiled tigress when another ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... safely say that Madame Midas had been home that night at half-past nine o'clock, whereas Villiers was still alive in Ballarat—as could be proved by the evidence of Mr Jarper—at two o'clock in the morning. So, foiled on every side in his endeavours to implicate Mrs Villiers in her husband's disappearance, Slivers retired to his office, and, assisted by his ungodly cockatoo, passed many hours in swearing at his bad luck and ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... to whom the yacht was open. We saw no more of them, however, for two hours, and then they came straggling back towards the little bluff behind which the Sea Queen lay. If they had been looking for us, they were so far foiled. But that was not the last of them. The boat which had landed the first lot of mutineers had returned to the yacht, and now again struck the beach with a fresh complement of hands. Were they to renew the pursuit? I looked down from our eyrie, scarcely ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... my friend has helped me very liberally," replied Jerry, who was not at all out of humour, except when he was foiled with his own weapons. In the meantime, Paul, who was a little stunned with the blow he had received on his head, had continued on the floor rolling in the pea-soup, and was just attempting ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... renegade, however, this conduct of Oshasqua was far from being agreeable; for so much did he delight in cruelty, and so bitterly did he hate all his race—particularly now, after having been foiled by them so lately—that he would a thousand times rather have heard the dying groans of the child, and seen her in the last agonies of death, than in the warrior's arms. At length he advanced to the side of the Indian, and said in the ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... meaning. We saw Belgium attacked. We saw France threatened wi' a new disaster that would finish the murder her ain courage and splendor had foiled in 1871. We sprang to the rescue this time—oh, aye! The nation's leaders knew the path of honor—knew, too, that it was Britain's only path of safety, as it chanced. They declared war sae soon as it was plain how Germany meant to ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."[297] The word that had proceeded from the mouth of God, upon which Satan would have cast mistrust, was that Jesus was the Beloved Son with whom the Father was well pleased. The devil was foiled; Christ was triumphant. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... hardly avoid contact with their charges, their calling was implicitly forbidden.[111] Unfortunately, the authorised version expressly says "dead carcase"; and thus the most rabbinically minded of reconcilers might find his casuistry foiled by that great source of surprises, the "original Hebrew." That such check is at any rate possible, is clear from the fact that the legal uncleanness of some animals, as food, did not interfere with their being lawfully possessed, ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley



Words linked to "Foiled" :   unsuccessful, defeated



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