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Forcible   /fˈɔrsəbəl/   Listen
Forcible

adjective
1.
Impelled by physical force especially against resistance.  Synonyms: physical, strong-arm.  "A real cop would get physical" , "Strong-arm tactics"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Forcible" Quotes from Famous Books



... an able, forcible speaker, and held her attention from the first. His sermon was topical rather than textual in its character; that is, he enlarged on what he termed "the irreconcilable enmity between God and the world," taking as ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... protested Captain Jim. "He didn't LOOK of much account, but you can't go by looks in jedging a dog. Like meself, he might be a real beauty inside. The First Mate didn't approve of him, I'll allow. His language was right down forcible. But the First Mate is prejudiced. No use in taking a cat's opinion of a dog. 'Tennyrate, I lost my dinner, so this nice spread in this dee-lightful company is real pleasant. It's a great thing to have ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... and that all other shall fall beneath my sword, as useless trees, so that there shall remain of them not even a faint remembrance. Had I not deemed it more convenient to destroy them by famine than to smite them with the sword, I should already have gotten forcible mastery of the city, and they would have reaped the fruits of their voyage hither by undergoing ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... not. Mrs. Ennis herself would not have given her favorite amusement so stately a name; she was aware merely that she found herself possessed of a great curiosity concerning people, particularly those of forcible and widely different characteristics, and that she liked, whenever possible, to gather them together, and then see what would happen. Usually something did—happen, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... his devoted chaplain, Richard Swinfield, an excellent preacher and a man of agreeable manners. Bishop Swinfield, like his predecessor, stoutly vindicated the rights and discipline of his diocese, once against a layman for taking forcible possession of a vacant benefice, another time against a lady for imprisoning a young clergyman in her castle on a false charge, and also against the people of Ludlow for violating the right of sanctuary, and in many cases against abuses of all sorts. On one occasion Pontius de Cors, a ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher

... which bade fair to be ruined by the wiles of a wicked woman. He was anxious for the coming of Dick, to whom he would make one more appeal. If that should fail—well, he must use the influences at his command to secure the forcible parting of the ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana

... ancient of all the arguments of moralists in favor of the toleration of prostitutes; and if we accept the eternal validity of the marriage system with which prostitution developed, and of the theoretical morality based on that system, this is an exceedingly forcible, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... the beef and pork were tainted, the fish rotten, the butter and cheese corrupted. European wheat and seeds did not mature well. Soon, as Bradford says in his now famous Log-Book, in his picturesque and forcible English, "the grim and grizzled face of starvation stared" at them. The readiest supply to replenish the scanty larder was fish, but the English made surprisingly bungling work over fishing, and soon the most unfailing and valuable supply ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... for all day, and was colloguing with Frisbie about the carrying out of the sumptuary order for the forcible camp-cleaning, when Penfield came with the request that the chief report at once to ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... are self-knowledge and self-mastery. You, my hosts, and I may not agree in all our views; some of you would think me a very radical democrat—as, for the matter of that, I am—and my theory of imperialism would probably suit the anti-imperialists as little as it would suit a certain type of forcible-feeble imperialist. But there are some points on which we must all agree if we think soundly. The precise form of government, democratic or otherwise, is the instrument, the tool, with which we work. It is important to have a good tool. But, even ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... but it is not very rapid or profound. A lecture ought to be something which all can understand, about something which interests everybody. I think, that, if any experienced lecturer gives you a different account from this, it will probably be one of those eloquent or forcible speakers who hold an audience by the charm of their manner, whatever they talk about,—even when they don't talk ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... people of all nations to flock into a gold-bearing colony on terms of perfect equality with its own subjects?—to flock in, take all they can get, and then make off with it?" a point of view that elicited forcible grunts of assent, which held their own against hoots and hisses. Unfortunately the speaker did not stop here, but went on: "Gentlemen! Do not, I implore you, allow yourselves to be led astray by a handful of ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... question is lucidly and unanswerably argued in a little contemporary tract, entitled "The King's Power in Matters Ecclesiastical fairly stated." See also a concise but forcible argument by Archbishop Sancroft. Doyly's Life of Sancroft, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... restrictions on the sale of sauerkraut, and a hideous rumour is afoot to the effect that they are preparing to use it on the prisoners by forcible feeding. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various

... like one in a dream, hardly knowing how to answer. Here was I, a simple country youth, plunged into a conspiracy so daring that the recital of it almost took away my breath. The enterprise, started by the Abbe de Retz, was no less than the forcible carrying-off of Cardinal Mazarin, the most powerful man in France. I turned hot and ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... propositions were unanswerable, his opponents were inclined to believe this the consequence of their own want of knowledge, on so abstracted a subject, rather than that arguments did not exist, which were forcible enough to conquer his. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... of happiness, of simple delight, lit the young man's sombre eyes as the phrases fell. To the minister they were mere forcible words; to Finlay they were soft rain in a famished land. Then he looked again heavily at the pattern of ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... the court of Queen Margherita, and she interested Mr. Browning very much by speaking of her beloved royal mistress, and showing him some of the handwriting of the Queen, which he thought characteristically graceful and forcible. The Contessina and Miss Bronson, with others of the younger people, seated themselves in rustic chairs to listen to every word from the poet; and a Venetian sculptor, who was there, concealed himself in the shrubbery and made a sketch of Browning. The Contessina, who, ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... occurs (Ps. lxviii. 20), "Issues of death." The numerical value of "issues" is nine hundred and three. The hardest of all deaths is by quinsy, and the easiest is the Divine kiss (of which Moses, Aaron, and Miriam died). Quinsy is like the forcible extraction of prickly thorns from wool, or like a thick rope drawn through a small aperture; the kiss referred to is like the extracting of ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... hundred." "They were of the poorer classes of both sexes, with a sprinkling of well-dressed men and women. They seemed to perform their devotions in a spirit of entire reverence and piety, not unlike a similar class in our churches at home. The clergyman delivered an impressive and forcible discourse, chiefly on the honour due to the name of God, and reprobated the profane use of the most sacred names, so common among the Spanish people.... Altogether I look upon the congregation at the Calle de Madera as a nucleus of genuine ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... of mind was evidently not of the sweetest, for to Vijil he had expressed himself in forcible Mexican—which is supposed to be Spanish and often isn't—condemning the luck by which the cinch had gone bad at the wrong time, and as he tinkered he sang softly an old ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... their fingers gripped, "after your most convincing—shall we say, argument?—if you tell me you have boxed with all and every champion back to Mendoza, Jack Slack, and Broughton, egad! I'll believe you, for you have a devilish striking and forcible way with you at times!" Here the Viscount cherished his bruised ribs with touches of tender inquiry. "Yes," he nodded, "there is a highly commendable thoroughness in your methods, my dear Bev, and I'm free to confess I ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... ties of kinship, of neighbourliness, of congruity of character and belief, and of language and mode of life, the best, healthiest, and most vigorous political unit is that to which men are by their own feelings strongly drawn. Any breach of such unity, whether by forcible disruption or by compulsory inclusion in a larger society of alien sentiments and laws, tends to mutilate—or, at lowest, to cramp—the spontaneous development of social life. National and personal freedom are growths of ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... was peelin' taters in the Station, when all of a suddint he sot down kinder forcible on a chair, dropped the knife an' tater, an' looked at me as if I'd done somethin' t' him. I ran crost t' him an' stood by, so t' speak. Then he kinder laughed an' said, distant an' thick, 'That was comical! I felt like my works had run down!' Billy ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... strength of the prison than to the vigilance of the guard; and one dark night, by the aid of some of their comrades outside and the treachery of one of the jailers, the prisoners effected an easy escape. Dodging through the narrow streets they went by various ways to the harbour, and there took forcible possession of a small brig that was lying at anchor in the bay. Before the alarm spread the vessel was far out at sea beyond the possibility of pursuit. The escape was well planned, and as the brig was fully provisioned, her destination could ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... them so firmly on the comparatively poor and obscure young lawyer, was a circumstance that could not so easily be understood. Had the interesting fact transpired, that the great Elias had not so much slipped through her fingers, as, to use his own forcible and elegant language, "wriggled himself clear," it might have been satisfactory to the world in general. But Mr Green was far-away intent on more important matters, on the valuation and disposal of fabulous quantities of pork and wheat, ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... example, thumb-screws, racks, wheels, scorpions, water-dropping for the head, bags of snakes, tweezers, and steel-pointed beds, it being apparent that our agony for the slave cannot be satisfied except by his liberation, or by the forcible subjection to us of all who oppose it. And we do hereby request all the friends of freedom now travelling in despotic countries to make inquiry as to the most approved methods of persuading the mind by appeals to it through the sensibilities of ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... conduct. He maintained what he had said. But he also reminded his readers, that he had never, as his calumniators accused him, spoken of acting against the conquered and humbled, but solely of smiting those actually engaged in rebellion. He declared further, at the close of his new and forcible remarks on the use of the sword, that Christian authorities, at any rate were bound, if victorious, to 'show mercy not only to the innocent, but also to the guilty.' As for the 'furious raging and senseless tyrants, who even after the battle cannot satiate themselves with blood, and throughout ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... were hardly to be expected. Other nations have been called thin-skinned, but the citizens of the Union have, apparently, no skins at all; they wince if a breeze blows over them, unless it be tempered with adulation. It was not, therefore, very surprising that the acute and forcible observations of a traveler they knew would be listened to should be received testily. The extraordinary features of the business were, first, the excess of the rage into which they lashed themselves; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... forcible anti-slavery verse, most of this has already been forgotten, because it was directly fashioned to appeal to the interests of the time. One of the strongest of these poems is Ichabod (1850), a bitter arraignment ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... the list might be added to. Especially when we come near to 1858 do the numbers increase, and one of the most remarkable, as also most independent champions of the evolution-idea before that date was Herbert Spencer, who not only marshalled the arguments in a very forcible way in 1852, but applied the formula in detail in his "Principles of Psychology" in 1855. (See Edward Clodd, "Pioneers of Evolution", London, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... everything inflammable, such as curtains and bedding, as far from the windows as possible, and trusted to a supply of well-filled buckets stationed in every room to help us in case of fire. And as an additional defender against a forcible entry from any unexpected quarter, I brought Con the dog (who seemed to understand all that was going forward) into the house, and ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... her the towering holiday. She took the delirium in her own pure fashion, in a love of the bankside flowers and the downy edges of the young beech-buds fresh on the sprays. And it was no unreal love, though too intent and forcible to win the spirit from the object. She paid for this indulgence of her mood by losing the spirit entirely. At night she was a spent rocket. What had gone she could not tell: her very soul she almost feared. Her glorious walk ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Festing noted that although he made them useful, he did not give them the hardest work. He refrained from asking how Charnock got the men, but was not surprised when the foreman arrived and inquired in forcible language what they were ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... some who favoured the cause. He seems to have adopted the Roman Emperor's determination, oderint dum metuant; he used no allurements of gentle language, but wished to compel rather than persuade. His style is copious without selection, and forcible without neatness. He took the words that presented themselves. His diction is coarse and impure, and his sentences are unmeasured. He had in the early part of his life pleased himself with the notice of inferior wits, and corresponded with ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... international law has been brought up by the cutting of the cables by Admiral Dewey; it is claimed that by doing this he has established an international precedent, for his cutting of the cable connecting a country at war with another country is a forcible interference with communication which has not been ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 23, June 9, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... streams introduced, they nevertheless do no violence to the works executed. 'A natural landscape,' says, an ancient author in four words; and why? Simply because he apprehended that what was not land, would, by forcible ways, be converted into land; and that what was no hill would, by unnatural means, be raised into a hill. And ingenious though these works might be in a hundred and one ways, they cannot, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... eternity. He had appeared since his conviction as if devoid of feeling; but on receiving this information, he fell on his knees in an agony of joy and gratitude. The solemn scene appeared likewise to make a forcible impression on all his ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... too, of the structure were strengthened: the half cadence no longer sufficed to divide first from second subject, or, after development, to return to the principal theme; then, again, the wider scope of the development itself demanded more striking harmonies, more forcible ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock

... and Janinet, proposed to drive balloons through the air by the forcible expulsion of the hot air in the envelope from the rear of the balloon. An opening was made about half-way up the envelope, through which the hot air was to escape, buoyancy being maintained by a pan of combustibles in the car. Unfortunately, this development of the Montgolfier type never ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... peculiar advantage with it, that the foremost point of the contrary ground may at any time be reached by the sudden exertion of a thought; and it frequently happens in sentimental differences, that some striking circumstance, or some forcible reason quickly conceived, will effect in an instant what neither argument nor example could produce ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... Literature, its laws, practices, and observances:—"He talked well in his way; with veracity, easy brevity and force; as a wise tradesman would of his tools and workshop, and as no unwise one could. His voice was good, frank, and sonorous, though practically clear, distinct, and forcible, rather than melodious; the tone of him business-like, sedately confident; no discourtesy, yet no anxiety about being courteous: a fine wholesome rusticity, fresh as his mountain breezes, sat well on the stalwart veteran, and ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... It is not genius, not scholarship, not wisdom, not strength nor speed, that fixes the man's place. None of these things is chiefly looked to: the question is, Is he agreeable or disagreeable? And according as that question is decided, the man is described, in the forcible language of youth, as "a brick," or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... then his priests and priestesses refuse its allurements, and deny all its claims, those of kindred, of country, of race, until the act of generation itself is held unholy and the thought of sex a sin. By such forcible though rude displays do they set forth their unconscious acknowledgment of that eternal truth: "He that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... size, windowless, but provided with a small skylight. A straw pallet, a broken table, two chairs, and a few plain kitchen utensils constituted the sole appointments of this miserable garret. But in spite of the occupant's evident poverty, everything was neat and clean, and to use a forcible expression that fell from Father Absinthe, one could have eaten off ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... in security. Many of our noblest architectural monuments belong to that age. Then rose the fair chapels of New College and of Saint George, the nave of Winchester and the choir of York, the spire of Salisbury and the majestic towers of Lincoln. A copious and forcible language, formed by an infusion of French into German, was now the common property of the aristocracy and of the people. Nor was it long before genius began to apply that admirable machine to worthy purposes. While ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... police-station," sobbed Mrs. White, continuing to embrace Maria. But Maria gave her a forcible push away, and again addressed ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Adj. powerful, puissant; potential; capable, able; equal to, up to; cogent, valid; efficient, productive; effective, effectual, efficacious, adequate, competent; multipotent[obs3], plenipotent[obs3], omnipotent; almighty. forcible &c. adj. (energetic) 171; influential &c. 175; productive &c. 168. Adv. powerfully &c. adj.; by virtue of, by dint of. Phr. a toute force[Fr]; <gr/dos moi pou sto kai kino ten gen/gr>[Sp][Grk][Grk][Grk][Grk][Grk]; eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... notorious. During the exile of Charles II., Henry Jermyn had made a considerable figure at her court in Holland by reason of the splendour of his equipage, entirely supported by his uncle's wealth; he had likewise made a forcible impression on her heart by virtue of the ardour of his addresses, wholly sustained by his own effrontery. The effect of his presence on the princess soon became visible to the court. Rumour whispered that as Lord St. Albans had already made ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... satisfactory task performed by our admiral. He wrote to the Grand Duke, urging him in forcible terms to permit the English and other Protestants settled in his domains liberty to keep the Bible in their houses, and to follow their own form of worship, a privilege which ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston

... Arnold upon Modern History contain, however, such a treasure of brilliant philosophy, of deep thought and forcible writing, that the sooner you begin them, and the more intimately you study them, the better pleased I should be. With respect to his singular views on religion and politics, you must always keep carefully in mind that his peculiar mental organization incapacitated him from forming correct opinions ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... to impress in the most forcible manner possible the fact that will-power is necessary to success, and that, other things being equal, the greater the will-power, the grander and more complete the success, we can not indorse the theory that there is nothing in circumstances or environments, or that any man, simply because he ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... spoke of the advance in the cause of education for women, and reviewed the progress in each particular branch of science. Letters from various parts of the world were read by Mrs. Griffing and Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake, the latter of whom demonstrated in an amusing and forcible manner that the women of our country did not form a part of the "people," according to the various banners and posters displayed about the streets in reference to the coming election. Woman did want to vote; she did love her country; but because ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... will call attention to the method of forcible flexion; and though extreme flexion has been practiced by surgeons in isolated cases, still to Professor Adelman, of Dorpat, is due the credit of first ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various

... on Sweden, and, being convicted of treason by the assembled Swedish States, retired from his archiepiscopal throne to a monastery. On the successes of Christiern, however, he quitted his retirement, and, regardless of his oaths of abdication, resumed his former office. His forcible deposition was one of the pretexts for the massacre of Stockholm. He opposed Gustavus Vasa in his patriotic endeavours, and once circumvented the hero with a troop of Danes, so that he narrowly escaped ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... consonant with his present view of the new Valentine, for, despite the latter's gaiety, ease, and self-possession, his smiling sociability and expansiveness, the doctor was perpetually conscious of a lurking violence, an incessant and forcible exigence in him. It might be a fancy, but the doctor was not, as a rule, the prey of fancies. Yet Valentine gave no outward hint of inward turmoil. Rather did the doctor divine it as by a curious intuition that guided him ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... as I have already told you. The king of this country is at present Gaiour, who has an only daughter, the finest woman that ever was seen in the world since it has been a world. Neither you nor I, neither your class nor mine, nor all our respective genies, have expressions forcible enough, nor eloquence sufficient to convey an adequate description of her charms. Her hair is brown, and of such length as to trail on the ground; and so thick, that when she has fastened it in buckles on her head, it may be fitly compared to one of those fine clusters of grapes ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... progress of civilisation must soon have rendered necessary, being frequently expressive of the feelings of the mind, or denoting those ordinary modes of thought which result from the social habits of mankind, or from the evils that tend to interrupt them." This assertion might have been put in more forcible terms had it occurred to the author to include not only words expressive of thought and feelings, but even some signifying natural objects, though doubtless most of these are expressed by aboriginal words. Hari, day, is clearly identical with the Sanskrit hari, ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell

... under the influence of the emotions we need not go to science to learn, for all human experience and all literature are overflowing with evidence that shows the extent of this relation. Scripture is full of it; the heart in Hebrew poetry represents the entire life, we might almost say. Not less forcible is the language of Shakespeare, as for ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... decreede, He shall be what he seemes, that's deade. For what in him shows life but a breathing ayre? Which by a free constraint it self ingenders In things without life, as twixt a pair of bellowes We feele a forcible aire, having of it self Force and being, no more is this breathing block But for his use in kinde.—Give out in some bursse or congregation Among the multitude Philautus[271] death. Let all the customarie rights of funerall, His knell or what else, ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... of these will do. Yea, these, for aught I know, may do it for us sooner than an army of twenty thousand men. Wherefore, to end as I began, my advice is, that we quietly withdraw ourselves, not offering any further force, or forcible attempts, upon the castle, at least at this time; and let us set on foot our new project, and let us see if that will not make them ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... delectable fluid, smoking hot, and each mouth crammed with excellent bread and meat. Then comparative quiet ensued, during which temporary calm Tom read a few verses of the Word of God, commenting on them briefly in language so forcible that it went right home to many hearts, yet so simple that even little Martha ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... considered [31] by him) counted, certainly; for these too are part of the actual value of what one says. But still, after all, with Flaubert, the search, the unwearied research, was not for the smooth, or winsome, or forcible word, as such, as with false Ciceronians, but quite simply and honestly, for the word's adjustment to its meaning. The first condition of this must be, of course, to know yourself, to have ascertained your own sense exactly. Then, if we suppose ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater

... grab that he had forgotten the one serious danger that threatened to turn the tide of accident, hitherto so favorable, completely against him. He had forgotten the burning gallivats. But now his attention was recalled to them in a very unpleasant and forcible way. There was a deafening report, as it seemed from a few yards' distance, followed immediately by a splash in the water just ahead. The glare of the burning vessels was dimly lighting up almost the whole harbor mouth, and the runaway gallivat, now ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... chair to his visitor and seated himself at his writing table, from whence he could see, behind Peter, on the far wall, a portrait of Aymer painted in the pride of his life and youth, so wonderfully like even now in its strong colour and forcible power, and so full of subtle differences and ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... the hungry nobles, and made them anxious to share in the plunder of religious houses, particularly after the example had been set across the border by Henry VIII.'s attack on the English monasteries. But before any steps were taken to bring about the forcible seizure of the ecclesiastical property the rulers and lords of Scotland adopted other means of controlling the wealth of the Church and of the monasteries. Members of the royal family or sons of the nobles were introduced into the bishoprics ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... to Jesus Christ for mercy.' How characteristic is this of the peculiarly striking style of Bunyan! How solemn his warnings! 'The invitations of the gospel will be, to those who refuse them, the hottest coals in hell.' His reasonings against despair are equally forcible: ''Tis a sin to begin to despair before one sets his foot over the threshold of hell gate. What! despair of bread in a land that is full of corn! despair of mercy, when our God is full of mercy! when he goes about by his ministers, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... circumstances in contact with the practical operation of the iniquitous claim which Great Britain set up—of taking out of vessels sailing under the American flag any person they pleased—should have been called upon subsequently, when upon the throne of France, by the English Government to disavow the forcible abduction of a seaman from an ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... the more forcible, Meg? The closeness of God all the more certain? The weaving of the threads of His beautiful fabric all the more golden?—Akhnaton's great 'Lord of Fortune,' the 'Master of Things Ordained,' the 'Chance which gives Life,' the 'Origin of Fate,' call it what you will—the power ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... reassured him to go back to his foundations and to find them still standing. He lost his tongue-tied clumsiness and spoke rapidly, clearly, with brief, strong gestures. His haggard youth gave place to a forcible, aggressive maturity. He was like an architect who had planned for every inch and stone of his masterpiece. Next year he would pass his finals. He would take posts as locum tenens whenever he could and keep his hospital connexions warm. In five years he would save enough to ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... He sought some forcible phrase that would crush her, but he could find none. His only desire was to take that fair face in his hands and to fasten his ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... legionaries swooping down from the fortress of Antonia at the first evidence of an outbreak; and they were particularly vigilant in suppressing all Messianic pretenders, for false Messiahs had arisen already, and much blood had been shed in the forcible dispelling of their delusive claims. But the Romans saw nothing to fear, perhaps much to smile at, in the spectacle of a King mounted upon an ass, and attended by subjects, who, though numerous, brandished no weapons but waved instead palm branches and myrtle ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... forcible expression in the laws which prevail in all the Southern States, without exception, forbidding the intermarriage of white persons and persons of color—these last being generally defined within certain degrees. While it is evident that such laws alone will not prevent the intermingling of races, ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... completely reassured, yet on the whole pretty well pleased. She felt that she had been taken hold of by a strong, decided hand. She had made an excursion into a new land where feeble compliments were dispensed with and where meek-eyed ingratiation seemed not to exist. Yes, he was a forcible, clever fellow. That Virgilia Jeffreys should have tried to make her think anything else, and that she should have permitted Virgilia to make the attempt! She should see Virgilia soon, somewhere, and should regain the lost ground; ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... and make their report from which the Court could make its order or decrees. Any person who deemed himself aggrieved had the right to appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court. The right of the Indians became vested and forcible the moment the statute took effect." See a statement from the present Attorney General of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... more flagrant abuse of impressment, the forcible seizure of American citizens for service in the British navy, became intolerably prevalent during Jefferson's administration. Not content with reclaiming deserters or asserting the eternity of British ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... his second edition. In these days of sensational literature and superficial study there is a prejudice against the story that fills more than one volume. But the reader who opens these pages is so carried away by the intense interest of the subject, clothed as it is in forcible and yet graceful language, that he closes them with regret; and I am only too glad to ask others to share the very great pleasure I have myself enjoyed in reading them. I know of no book which will add more largely to the soldier's knowledge of strategy and the art of war; and the ordinary ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... breast with his open palm; his voice had remained low though he had spoken in a forcible tone. He twisted his moustaches one after another, and his eyes wandered a little about ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... we took forcible possession of Jack Cook's lodgings, which were situated near the Marie Stuart Hall, Crosshill. Jack was very fond of billiards, and sometimes pocketed several "pools" of an evening, when a few choice spirits congregated in "The Rooms." Jack's landlady had frequently threatened him ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone

... a girl made so forcible an impression on Kennedy, I know, for on our return he fairly dived into work, like the Z99 herself, and I did not see him all the next day until just before dinner time. Then he came in and spent half an hour restoring ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... necessary to use the Will with an effort. Simply commanding that which you wish to produce and then making the mental picture of it is all that is necessary. Calm command with the mental picture is far better than forcible willing, which only dissipates force needlessly. The above exercise is most helpful and greatly refreshes and strengthens the nervous system and produces a restful feeling all over the body. It is especially beneficial In cases where one is tired or ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka

... and the author recollected having thought, at the time he wrote it down, that it was about the most forcible sentence in that most powerful passage of his book. But it was rather an exaggerated tone to adopt in the face of such common-place surroundings. Had this exquisite creature, after all, no better sense of ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... exactly in proportion to the proof afforded, is our admission of such truth and belief in it. If, then, religion be the most important subject of human inquiry, it must be that also which presents the most forcible, irrefragable, and indisputable truths to the inquirer.—It must be that on which the human mind can err the least, and where all minds must be the most agreed. If religion be at once a science, and the most true of all sciences, its truths must be as indisputable as those in any branch ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... Harry!" "Oh, we can't stand that!" "We'll see you to your door, lad, if you out with it, fair and forcible." ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... of aeration in bread-making, the oldest and most time-honored mode is by fermentation. That this was known in the days of our Saviour is evident from the forcible simile in which he compares the silent permeating force of truth in human, society to the very familiar household process of raising ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... stiffly, invited the Russian to go with him in the first carryall. Here was another difficulty. For the German professor was quietly ensconced on the back seat! As soon as the French gentleman put his foot on the step and saw him he addressed him in such forcible language that the German professor got out of the door the other side, and came round on the sidewalk and took him by the collar. Certainly the German and French gentlemen could not be put together, and ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale

... officer, named McWaters. McWaters is famous in New York. He is the theatrical critic of the Police Department. His opinions on music and the drama are of weighty authority among members of the force, and, like most critics, he is dogmatic and forcible. ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... the honour of a family, they that are good never tolerate such insult coming from the stranger. The wicked-souled king of the Gandharvas knoweth that we are living here from some time. Yet disregarding us, he hath done this deed which is so disagreeable to us! O exalted one, from this forcible seizure of Duryodhana and from this insult to the ladies of our house by a stranger, our family honour is being destroyed. Therefore, ye tigers among men, arise and arm yourselves without delay for rescuing those that have sought our protection and for guarding the honour of our ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... immediately plunged into the water and held there with a forcible hand, notwithstanding my resistance. I soon perceived, however, that the object of my captor was not to drown me, for he held me firmly in such a position as to place my head above water. This reassured ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... exactly corresponding idioms of another. There are idiomatic forms, especially in the Greek, which have no precisely correspondent forms in the English, and yet these are not unfrequently the most forcible expressions of any to be found in the original; any attempt to render these literally must be abortive; and a literal rendering, or as nearly literal as possible, is the worst translation, because it sacrifices the clearness, force, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... set the poor fellow free," he said energetically. "I do not believe that a forcible prison delivery would be successful again, when our former attempt is so fresh in the mind of the prison governor; but the presidential election in Great Britain and Ireland is approaching, and if I judge the signs of the times aright, the Radicals under Bagshaw ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... would be set apart for them permanently in the West, where each tribe could have its own home and its own government, subject to no control by the United States except for the maintenance of peace on the frontier and among the tribes. Forcible removal was not to be contemplated; that would be cruel and unjust. But every effort was to be made to bring about a voluntary migration. One thing was to be clearly understood: any tribe or group that chose to remain in Georgia must submit ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... I leaned my body forward so as to maintain my seat, and with my arms pulled violently backwards by the rope, the flesh was rubbed off my hands and knuckles by the chain of the handcuffs. In places the bone was exposed; and, of course, every tug brought me into forcible contact with the spikes and inflicted deeper wounds. The cord, though strong, eventually and unexpectedly gave way. The soldier who was pulling at the other end was clumsily unhorsed, and I myself was all but thrown by ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... Ford himself, at the head of ten fellows, armed with such powers of forcible entry as the Sheriff could grant. Robin received the forester civilly, but told him plainly that Locksley was his and that he would ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... part was, indeed, a severe and forcible picture of the responsibilities of mothers, and a warning against the evils that were in the world, and lying in ghastly wait for the little baby of two days old. His wife did not write, said the old gentleman, because he had forbidden it, she being indisposed with ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... talking to the young men Guillaume had listened to her without interfering. If he had fallen in love with her it was largely on account of her frankness and uprightness, the even balance of her nature, which gave her so forcible a charm. She knew all; but if she lacked the poetry of the shrinking, lamb-like girl who has been brought up in ignorance, she had gained absolute rectitude of heart and mind, exempt from all hypocrisy, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... mercury by its specific gravity, and the advocates of this doctrine favored the general introduction of the preparations of iron, especially in scirrhus of the spleen or liver, upon the same hypothetical principle; for, say they, whatever is most forcible in removing the obstruction must be the most proper instrument of cure: such is steel, which, besides the attenuating power with which it is furnished, has still a greater force in this case from the gravity of its ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... which no ear of any delicacy can tolerate. We come away from an opera of Rameau's intoxicated with harmony and stupefied with the noise of voice and instruments. His taste is always Gothic, and, whether his subject is light or forcible, his style is equally heavy. He was not destitute of ideas, but did not know what use to make of them. In his recitatives the sound is continually in opposition to the sense, though they occasionally contain ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris

... direct, and forcible in his criticism of plays. In rejecting a French play, he wrote to Michael Morton in defense of his judgment, ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... born and brought up in Algeria. All that was strange to the Heaths was commonplace to him. But he had an original and forcible mind and a keen sense of the workings of environment and circumstance upon humanity. At first he was very polite and formal, a mere bundle of good manners. But under Charmian's carefully calculated influence, he changed. He perhaps guessed what her object was, guessed that success for ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... anxious to open its soul to the air. So must you press forward to open your soul to the eternal. But it must be the eternal that draws forth your strength and beauty, not desire of growth. For in the one case you develop in the luxuriance of purity, in the other you harden by the forcible passion for personal stature. ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins

... far from St. James's Street, and was supposed to be one of its proprietors. Just before Coleman left town, there had been an expose of certain shameful proceedings which had taken place at this house—windows had been broken, and the police obliged to make a forcible entrance; but Cumberland had as yet contrived to keep his name from appearing, although it was known that he was concerned in the affair, and would be obliged to keep out of the way at present. "We shall take the old lady by surprise, I've a notion," said Freddy, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... suitable for modern use than Demosthenes. It is true that he is guilty of gross bad taste in some of his speeches—but rarely in a parliamentary oration. Cicero is too verbose and often insincere. Demosthenes is as a rule short, terse and forcible. It is the undoubted justice of his cause which gives him his lofty and noble style. He lacks the gentler touch of humour—but a man cannot jest when he sees servitude before the country he loves. With a few necessary alterations a speech of Demosthenes ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... robbery was wrong and assassination a crime—that the practice of ripping open pregnant women and putting prisoners of war under harrows of iron was displeasing to the Lord. It was a forcible illustration of the ancient axiom that it makes a great difference whose ox is gored. Instead of founding a mighty nation as predicted by their prophets, the Jews were conquered, ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... or lords of speech; and their poetry generally contains strong and lively images, bold figures, frequent allusions and similitudes, new and forcible expressions, and possesses the power of exciting sensibility. It is every where animated and metaphorical, and allegory is its very soul and essence. Their verses are mostly composed in stanzas of eight or eleven syllables, and are for the most part blank, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... the dregs in her lover's glass; and the Poisonmonger, fatigued with the rush of Christmas business, fainted away, and, being revived by potions from his own pails, survived only long enough to administer a forcible dose in revenge. The Well-Meaner's fate differed from that of her companions in that she was insidiously poisoned by each actor in turn, so that, figuratively speaking, the curtain descended upon a row of corpses, in the midst of which the Greek Chorus intoned exemplary ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... this contemptible worm (A forcible term), If he's assailed you wrongly. The rage display, Which, as you say, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... fair and ruddy. He was not undesirous of reputation both as a poet and prose-writer, and has recorded his regret that he had devoted so much time to evanescent periodical literature. His poetry is replete with patriotic sentiment, and his strain is forcible and occasionally brilliant. His songs indicate a fine fancy ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... they, with the men of Cerasus and Trapezus, pay us an appointed tribute. So that, whatever mischief you inflict on the men of Cotyora, the city of Sinope takes as personal to herself. At the present time we hear that you have made forcible entry into their city, some of you, and are quartered in the houses, besides taking forcibly from the Cotyorite estates whatever you need, by hook and by crook. Now against these things we enter protest. If you mean to go on so doing, you will drive us to make friends ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... chivalric Phineas, hastily gathering, as he spoke, material for a formidable missile, which, being completed before the sentence, was used by him as a ready means of rounding his period, being at once more forcible and easier to come at than the words which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... the letter with a calmly perusing eye. He had winced triflingly at one or two expressions contained in it; forcible, perhaps, but not such as Mrs. Lovell smiling from the wall yonder would ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... against the grooms (the dagger being produced against them and their faces smeared with blood) were sufficiently strong, yet the entire suspicion fell upon Macbeth, whose inducements to such a deed were so much more forcible than such poor silly grooms could be supposed to have; and Duncan's two sons fled. Malcolm, the eldest, sought for refuge in the English court; and the youngest, Donalbain, made ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... on this point are seconded and sustained, and there seems to be but one opinion on the subject among those who happen to have that castle in possession; at least the timid owner of it does not feel himself in a position to make any forcible resistance to the orders which his illustrious guests, who have 'taken from him the use of his own house,' have seen fit to issue in it. 'Shut up your ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... was picketing the King with threats of withdrawal from office, and the Labor Party the Government with threats of a national strike, the Government was preparing to picket the Bishops by a process of forcible feeding—a plethora of their own kind be thrust upon them—of their own kind but of a very different persuasion. And now at last the Bishops understood that the doubling of their dioceses was but a device of Machiavellian subtlety for the halving of ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... grandeur as the men of the Renaissance—his eye is yet as open to the delicacies of character, to the variety of external nature, to the wonders of the physical world—his interest in them as diversified and fresh, his impressions as sharp and distinct, his rendering of them as free and true and forcible, as little weakened or confused by imitation or by conventional words, his language as elastic and as completely under his command, his choice of poetic materials as unrestricted and original, as if he had been born in days which claim as their own such freedom ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Quixote's end came, after he had received all the sacraments, and had in full and forcible terms exprest his detestation of books of chivalry. The notary was there at the time, and he said that in no book of chivalry had he ever read of any knight-errant dying in his bed so calmly and so like a Christian as Don Quixote, who, amid the tears ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... therein celebrated with grace and delicacy. The panegyrist identified himself with his subject. A select public loaded with praises various passages wherein just and profound ideas were clothed in all the richness of a forcible and ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... had tasted lotus, and was in danger of forgetting that I was ever to depart, till Mr. Boswell sagely reproached me with my sluggishness and softness. I had no very forcible defence to make; and we agreed to pursue our journey. Macleod accompanied us to Ulinish, where we were entertained by the sheriff ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson



Words linked to "Forcible" :   forceful, physical, force



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