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Grievous   /grˈivəs/   Listen
Grievous

adjective
1.
Causing fear or anxiety by threatening great harm.  Synonyms: dangerous, grave, life-threatening, serious, severe.  "A grave situation" , "A grave illness" , "Grievous bodily harm" , "A serious wound" , "A serious turn of events" , "A severe case of pneumonia" , "A life-threatening disease"
2.
Causing or marked by grief or anguish.  Synonyms: heartbreaking, heartrending.  "A grievous cry" , "Her sigh was heartbreaking" , "The heartrending words of Rabin's granddaughter"
3.
Of great gravity or crucial import; requiring serious thought.  Synonyms: grave, heavy, weighty.  "Faced a grave decision in a time of crisis" , "A grievous fault" , "Heavy matters of state" , "The weighty matters to be discussed at the peace conference"
4.
Shockingly brutal or cruel.  Synonyms: atrocious, flagitious, monstrous.  "A grievous offense against morality" , "A grievous crime" , "No excess was too monstrous for them to commit"



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"Grievous" Quotes from Famous Books



... good and lovely—to blaspheme the bands Of tenderness innate and social love, 250 Holiest of things! by which the general orb Of being, as by adamantine links, Was drawn to perfect union, and sustain'd From everlasting? Hast thou felt the pangs Of softening sorrow, of indignant zeal, So grievous to the soul, as thence to wish The ties of Nature broken from thy frame, That so thy selfish, unrelenting heart Might cease to mourn its lot, no longer then The wretched heir of evils not its own? 260 ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... me, dear child, if I am still in love with life. I must confess that I find its sorrows grievous, but my distaste for death is even stronger. It is sad to think I must finish my life with death, and if it were possible I would retrace my steps. I find myself embarked on life without my consent, and am in a perplexing ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... yoke. For there, across the lake, the Landenberg Wields the same iron rule as Gessler here— No fishing-boat comes over to our side, But brings the tidings of some new encroachment, Some fresh outrage, more grievous than the last. Then it were well, that some of you—true men— Men sound at heart, should secretly devise, How best to shake this hateful thraldom off. Full sure I am that God would not desert you, But lend His favour to the righteous cause. Has thou ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... but blackbird-hunting. It is said you should have evidence as to what blackbird-hunting meant. I think it is a grievous mistake to pretend to ignorance of things passing before our eyes everyday. We may know the meaning of slang words, though we do not use them. Is there not a wide distinction between blackbird-hunting and a legitimate labour-trade, if such a thing is to be ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... he would deal unfairly with me? His words rang so true—even a bad man may love honestly! And if I trifle with the one saving virtue in his heart, will it not be a grievous sin?" ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock

... the sweet-eyed Tuscan wove The gilded thread of her romance, (Which I have lost by grievous chance,) The one dear woman that I love, Beside me in our seaside nook, Closed a white finger in her book, Half-vexed that she should read, and weep For Petrarch, to a man asleep. And scorning me, so tame and cold, She rose, and wandered down the shore, Her wine-dark drapery, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... are anything but that," declared Mr. Travers, conscientiously. "It isn't stupidity." He hesitated for a moment. "It's a kind of wilfulness, I think. I preferred not to think about this grievous difference in our points of view, which, you will admit, I could not have possibly foreseen before we. . ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... not understand about the wall, but perhaps he was bringing home some distinguished captive whom he wished to debar from all communication with the city. It might prove that everything was far better than they feared, and they would yet smile at these grievous anxieties. His heart, too, was heavy, for he wished the Queen the best fortune, not only for her own sake, but because with her and her successful resistance to the greed of Rome was connected ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of Amboise, a contemporary chronicler tells us, was received with greater or less cordiality in different localities of France, very much according to the number of Protestants they had contained before the war. "This edict of peace was very grievous to hear published and to have executed in the case of the Catholics of the peaceable cities and villages where there were very few Huguenots. But it was a source of great comfort to the Catholics of the cities which were oppressed by the Huguenots, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... she must forgive him. O, Mary, I fear a grievous lesson is coming to them; but I must do all I can. Good-bye, my dear; do the best you can for them;' and he set forth again ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... that the appetites of the rich do not increase with their wealth; in like manner, it would be a grievous thing could liberty be monopolized or scraped into heaps like wealth; a petty tyrant may persecute and imprison thousands, but he cannot thereby add one hour or inch to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various

... the Revolution never perceived, behind the world of visible things, the secret springs which moved them. A century of biological progress was needed to show how grievous were their mistakes, and how wholly a being of whatever species ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... wistfulness bordering on sadness which had sometimes almost angered her. For so little do even intimate friends know each other, that lives, which seem all peaceful and full of everything calculated to bring happiness, are often the ones which are preyed upon by some grievous trouble or anxiety unknown to any outsider. If he had indeed loved her all those seven years he must have suffered fearfully. What the suffering had been Erica could, from her present position, understand ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... fair and hapless shepherdess, Rose from her swooning in a sore dismay, And tried to smooth her damp and rumpled dress, That showed in truth a grievous disarray; Then where the brook the wan moon's mirror lay, She laved her eyes, and curled each ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... now made to feel the incubus-load, which perseverance in sin heaps on the breast of the reckless offender. What was the most grievous of all, his power to shake off this dead weight was diminished in precisely the same proportion as the burthen was increased, the moral force of every man lessening in a very just ratio to the magnitude of his delinquencies. Bitterly did this deep offender struggle with ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... I came, and a great troop was with me, upon a journey where I was to meet with bitter trials. And just as when I looked on that I marveled long within, since never before sprang such a stalk from earth; so, lady, I admire and marvel now at you, and greatly fear to touch your knees. Yet grievous woe is on me. Yesterday, after twenty days, I escaped from the wine-dark sea, and all that time the waves and boisterous winds bore me away from the island of Ogygia. Now some god cast me here, that probably here also I may meet with trouble; for I do not ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... you mention in your affairs I am sorry; but difficulty is now very general: it is not therefore less grievous, for there is less hope of help. I pretend not to give you advice, not knowing the state of your affairs; and general counsels about prudence and frugality would do you little good. You are, however, in the right not to increase your own perplexity by ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... rather than the rule, and such successes were due to financial rather than commercial operations. In a general sense the old commerce of Europe, so far as it followed its accustomed lines, suffered a grievous decline. More important than the decay of the old method was the growth of the new. A vast mass of new trade came into existence; spices and other Oriental products, now that they were imported by the Portuguese and afterwards by Spanish, Dutch, French, and English, by ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... its inspiration. An inspired lie is not better than an uninspired one. If the Bible is true it does not need to be inspired. If it is not true, inspiration does not help it. So that after all it is simply a question of fact. Is it true? I believe Mr. Beecher stated that one of my grievous faults was that I picked out the bad things in the Bible. How an infinitely good and wise God came to put bad things in his book Mr. Beecher does not explain. I have insisted that the Bible is not inspired, and, in order to prove that, have pointed out such passages ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... and the whole country given the benefits of uniform rule. It is estimated that the Rajahs tax the people to an extent equal to the revenues of the government—about $300,000,000 per annum: of this much is squandered in upholding their state—a grievous exaction from so poor a country. This will soon be one of ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... Potter that she saw a mysterious Providence, which, to her mind, warned and yet promised while it chastised, in all that had occurred. This feeling helped her to bear a disappointment, which would otherwise have been very grievous. The idea of an atoning ordeal, which she must endure in order to be crowned with the final justice, and so behold her life redeemed, had become rooted in her nature. To Gilbert much of this feeling was inexplicable, because he was ignorant of the circumstances which had called it ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... her up, I'm afraid; but we can just go and see. We've done a wrong, a very grievous wrong, my boy, and I cannot rest till I at least ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... repeatedly militated against my duty in the service of my king and country, that I dare not do my duty. I have already been half ruined by him; and condemned, without knowing I was before him. The treasury, it is true, paid part of the expence, but that does not make the judge's conduct less grievous." In all this, there is much to regret; but the judge could scarcely entertain the smallest personal prejudice against our hero, though he might appear too favourable to the frauds of neutral powers from even a laudable anxiety to prevent ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... these demonstrations with a grave, thoughtful face; he saluted the people affectionately, but his countenance grew sad. He thought of the many faithful subjects whom he had lost, of the cities and provinces which had been taken from him, of the grievous and bloody sacrifices of the last years; he remembered that he was returning to his ancestors, possessed only of the smaller portion of the inheritance which they had left him, and these reflections overshadowed ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... gaze had never ceased to watch his movements, from the instant when the other first came within view. Before speaking, the stranger, a man whose head was getting gray, apparently as much with hardship as with time, and one whose great weight would have proved a grievous burthen, in a long ride, to even a better-conditioned beast than the ill-favored provincial hack he had ridden, dismounted, and threw the bridle loose upon the drooping neck of the animal. The latter, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... care of souls annexed) as in her Majesty's books were rated at two hundred pounds yearly revenue; of which her Majesty's gift he never as yet had any one penny." In Oct. 1578, he had a consultation with Mr. Doctor Bayly, her Majesty's physician, "about her Majestie's grievous pangs and pains by reason of the toothake and rheum," &c. "He set down in writing, with hydrographical and geographical description, what he then had to say or shew, as concerning her Majesty's title royal to any foreign countries. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... manner, forbidding them to be buried. Such atonements has the goddess exacted from the despoilers of her temple; nor will she cease to pursue them, with every species of vengeance, till the sacred money shall have been replaced in the treasury. Formerly, our ancestors, during a grievous war with the Crotonians, because the temple was without the town, were desirous of removing the money into it; but a voice was heard from the shrine, during the night, commanding them to hold off their hands, for the goddess would defend her own temple. As ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... that on that day they brought to the place a vast quantity of nude figures, both in painting and in sculpture, many by the hand of excellent masters, and likewise books, lutes, and volumes of songs, which was a most grievous loss, particularly for painting. Thither Baccio carried all the drawings of nudes that he had made by way of studies, and he was followed by Lorenzo di Credi and by many others, who had the name of ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari

... surprising that the thoughts of the exiles were enraptured in contemplating this beautiful land? Was it criminal to seek a pleasant abode? But as an offset to its advantages, its "grievous diseases" and "noisome impediments" were vividly portrayed; and it was urged that, should they settle there and prosper, the "jealous Spaniard" might displace and expel them, as he had already the French from their settlements in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... conditions of this consultant are not cheering. The large cloud, associated with dots, the small dog on the opposite side, and the policeman beyond, all point to grievous money worries, possibly ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent

... make English newspapers somewhat unpleasant reading, and mournful men are given to moaning over the growth of national corruption. So persistent have the mournful folk been, that many good simple people are in a state of grievous alarm, for they are persuaded that the nation is bound towards the pit of Doom. When doleful men and women cry out concerning abstract evils, it is always best to meet them with hard facts, and I therefore propose to show that we ought really to be very ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... that, two hundred years after, my constitution is paying the penalty, and my whole life is thereby changed and thwarted. Hence this childless Randolph is affecting the course of several lives in the 19th century to their grievous hurt. ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall

... misunderstood. It would be a grievous and ludicrous mistake to associate the child-cult which runs like a thread of filmy star-light through the work of William Blake with the somewhat strained and fantastic attitude of child-worship which inspires ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... of the poet's creations have the promise of immortality. The ideal forms which people his imagination transfigure and supplant the dull and grievous realities of his mortal being and circumstance; but there are "things" more radiant, more enchanting still, the "strong realities" of the heart and soul—hope, love, joy. But they pass! We wake, and lo! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... Even in the grievous state of mental distress in which he now found himself, Sherston noticed that the street lamps were turned so low that there only shone out, under their green shades, pallid spots of light. And as he stumbled across the curb of the pavement, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... ourselves into a society for the purpose of annihilating this grievous evil, and all bandboxes, of ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... property. Contemporaneous records exist to show how conspicuously the relatives of Luther, at Mohra and in the district, shared the sturdy character of the local peasantry, always ready for self-help, and equally ready for fisticuffs. Firmly and resolutely, for many generations, and amidst grievous persecutions and disorders, such as visited Mohra in particular during the Thirty Years' War, this race maintained its ground. Three families of Luther exist there at this day, who are all engaged in agriculture; and a striking ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... unjust that he should be able to establish a claim against the United States for supplies which must have been the proceeds of that sum. If he has never received the million, every, day's suspension of his claim, after the immense delays heretofore incurred, is a grievous hardship upon him. It concerns materially the interests, and more the justice, the credit, and the character of the United States, that as speedy a solution as possible of the enigma may ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... protect her wild life, and always has gone as far as the killers of game would permit her to go! But the People have made one great mistake,—common to nearly every state,—of permitting the game-killers to dictate the game laws! Always and everywhere, this is a grievous mistake, and fatal to the game. For example: In 1866 New Jersey enacted a five-year close-season law on the "prairie fowl" (pinnated grouse); but it was too late to save it. Now that species is as dead to New ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... Provinces together: Venice carried with it, in addition to a commanding province on the Italian mainland, the Eastern Adriatic Coast as far as Ragusa. If it were true that the proportionate increase of power formed the only solid principle of European policy, France sustained a grievous injury in receiving back the limits of 1791, when every other State on the Continent was permitted to retain the territory, or an equivalent for the territory, which it had gained in the great changes that took place between 1791 and 1814. But in fact ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... the 18th of April, while the Peretti family were retiring to bed, a messenger from Marcello arrived, entreating Francesco to repair at once to Monte Cavallo. Marcello had affairs of the utmost importance to communicate, and begged his brother-in-law not to fail him at a grievous pinch. The letter containing this request was borne by one Dominico d'Aquaviva, alias Il Mancino, a confederate of Vittoria's waiting-maid. This fellow, like Marcello, was an outlaw; but when he ventured into Rome he frequented Peretti's house, and had made himself ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... Hare's influence he took deacon's orders, and he worked under Hare at Hurstmonceaux for the best part of a year. Very soon afterwards he began to feel the breach growing wider between his own convictions and those taught by the Church. He never, consequently, took priest's orders. Through grievous ill-health his winters were passed at Bordeaux, in Italy, or at Madeira. He died at Ventnor ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... antiquarian handbook we have ever met with—so clear is its arrangement, and so well and so plainly is each subject illustrated by well-executed engravings, that confusion for the future is impossible upon a variety of points on which the most grievous mistakes have hitherto been made by anxious and zealous antiquarians. * * * It is the joint production of two men who have already distinguished themselves as authors and antiquarians. It is a book of which it may be said, that in every sentence is to be found ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various

... events during the early winter of 1862-63 had resulted in a grievous loss of morale in the Army of the Potomac. The useless slaughter of Marye's Heights was, after a few weeks, succeeded by that most huge of all strategic jokes, the Mud March; and Gen. Burnside retired from a ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... banks which he gathered and threaded on stalks of grass for his sisters, Patience and Jerusha. They used to come with him and have pleasant games, but it was a long time since Patience had been able to come out, for in the winter, a grievous trouble had come on the family. The good mother had died, leaving a little baby of six weeks old, and Patience, who was only thirteen, had to attend to everything at home, and take care of poor little sickly Benoni ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge

... that the average rate of Federal taxation upon imports is to-day, in time of peace, but little less, while upon some articles of necessary consumption it is actually more, than was imposed by the grievous burden willingly borne at a time when the Government needed millions to maintain by war the safety and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... to go and come at the Will of his Master, but the other gives up his very Soul: He is prostituted to speak, and professes to think after the Mode of him whom he courts. This Servitude to a Patron, in an honest Nature, would be more grievous than that of wearing his Livery; therefore we will speak of those Methods only ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... such a ruinous expense; but they want sons, so that at death they may have honorable exit from the world; and there is no honor equal to the honor of having one's pyre lighted by one's son. The father who dies sonless is in a grievous situation indeed, and is pitied. Life being uncertain, the Hindoo marries while he is still a boy, in the hope that he will have a son ready when the day of his need shall come. But if he have no son, he will adopt one. This ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... that nothing but anecdotes were necessary to compose the lives of men of genius! With this sort of talent he produced a copious life of Bayle, in which he told everything he possibly could; and nothing can be more tedious, and more curious: for though it be a grievous fault to omit nothing, and marks the writer to be deficient in the development of character, and that sympathy which throws inspiration over the vivifying page of biography, yet, to admit everything, has this merit—that we are sure to find ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... very necessary; for superabundant as they are, thrusting their evil results upon us every day in painful ways, still we have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, and for want of a fuller realization of these most grievous mistakes, we are in danger of plunging more and more deeply into the snarls to which they bring us. From nervous prostration to melancholia, or other forms of insanity, is ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call

... Angry, and grieving, passed along the way Before me for a moment's space. The fay Was old and did not see me lying there. I grieved to see her sob in fretful mood, And often since I marvel in my mind What grievous heart-pang drove her from the wood To ease her heart away from her own kind. Strange, that these tiny, soulless beings should, Like us, be grieved and be with ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... settled in his mind that her sudden mingling with the villagers at the unlucky Winterborne's was the cause of her most grievous loss, as he deemed it, in the direction of ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off.... Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them. There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... to finish the sentence. The "perhaps" was a grievous thought, nothing less than that Nikky and Hedwig were at that moment riding in the ring together, and had both forgotten him. He was rather used to being forgotten. With the exception of Miss Braithwaite, he was nobody's business, really. His aunt forgot him frequently. On Wednesdays it was ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... grievous hour, Heigh-o, fiddlededee! Ever since that grievous hour When the lovely Lady was in their power They've never put nobody in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various

... patriotic Hadassah received a painful check when she heard some time afterwards from Abishai of the grievous sacrifice of the lives of a thousand faithful Hebrews, who had taken refuge in a cave at no great distance from Jerusalem. Being attacked there on the Sabbath-day by the Syrians, these Hebrews had actually let themselves be slaughtered without ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... by their resorting in large numbers to Benares, the ancient seat of brahminical learning and religion, on every occasion of an eclipse of the moon. Lord Kames reminds us that among the Greeks "an eclipse being held a prognostic given by the gods of some grievous calamity, Anaxagoras was accused of atheism for attempting to explain the eclipse of the moon by natural causes: he was thrown into prison, and with difficulty was relieved by the influence of Pericles. Protagoras was banished Athens for maintaining ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... case, what she had been taught a woman should do: grin, as Monohan had said, and take her medicine. For her there was no alternative. Fyfe had made that clear. But her heart cried out in rebellion against the necessity. To her, trying to think logically, the most grievous phase of the doing was the fact that nothing could ever be the same again. She could go on. Oh, yes. She could dam up the wellspring of her impulses, walk steadfast along the accustomed ways. But those ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... bramble-spray; from the speckled thrush on the swaying elm; from the lark far-hovering over a field of young corn. But in their own happiness they had thought of others; Francie soon came back to Lionel again and his grievous misfortunes; and she was listening with meekness to this tall, clear-eyed man, who could now claim a certain gentle authority over her. They were a long time before they ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... her aunt Margaret, who subsequently dedicated to her memory her poem Le Miroir de l'Ame Pecheresse. While the other children recovered from their illness, little Charlotte, as Margaret records in her letters to Bishop Briconnet, was seized "with so grievous a malady of fever and flux," that after a month's suffering she expired, to the deep grief of her aunt, who throughout her illness had ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... this made my spouse very uneasy; for he found me perplexed, and yet thought I was not open with him, and did not let him into every part of my grievance; and he would often say, he wondered what he had done that I would not trust him with whatever it was, especially if it was grievous and afflicting. The truth is, he ought to have been trusted with everything, for no man in the world could deserve better of a wife; but this was a thing I knew not how to open to him, and yet having ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... much scenic embellishment, so much that is attractive to both eye and ear, that delight in them may exist independently of a recognition of their deeper values. "Euryanthe" still comes before us with modest consciousness of grievous dramatic defects and pleading for consideration and pardon even while demanding with proper dignity recognition of the soundness and beauty of the principles that underlie its score and the marvelous tenderness, sincerity, and intensity ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... plundered the churches and thanes' houses and have stolen all that is worth carrying away; but when they have taken all that there is to take they leave the people alone, and unmolested, to till the ground and to gain their livelihood. They do not slay for the pleasure of slaying, and grievous as is the condition of the Angles they and their wives and children are free from massacre and are allowed to gain their livings. The West Saxons have showed that they are no cowards; they have defeated the Northmen over and over again when far outnumbering them. ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... the land to which you have come you shall find all men lovers of Italy. For there is not one of those that watched her long and grievous struggles, that did not welcome with a heartfelt joy her deliverance, both from foreign yoke and from native tyrants. Here too they know that the example of your illustrious family, the wisdom and moderation of your father not less than the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various

... for the two lovers. Barely united, they had to separate and to fight, far away from each other, against the most grievous accusations. ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... people, Is not this a grievous thing, that our bretheren that will be Land Lords, right or wrong, will make Laws, and call for a Law to be made to imprison, crush, nay put to death any that denies God, Christ and Scripture; and ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... the legs drag heavily. The desire for food is still left, to a degree, but it must be brought, not sought. The miserable remnant of life which still hangs to the sufferer is a burden almost too grievous to be borne; yet his inherent love of existence induces a desire still to preserve it, if it can be saved without a tax upon bodily exertion. The mind wanders. At one moment he thinks his weary limbs cannot sustain him a mile—the next, he is endowed with unnatural strength, and if there he ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... got out of his way and concealed themselves in the cave. He, bellowing, called aloud on all the Cyclopes dwelling in the caves around him, far and near. They on his cry flocked round the den, and inquired what grievous hurt had caused him to sound such an alarm and break their slumbers. He replied, "O friends, I die, and Noman gives the blow." They answered, "If no man hurts thee it is the stroke of Jove, and thou must bear it." So saying, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... face and bundled form and dress, all squashed on a sofa, did not at first promise much of gentility, you could not hear her speak or see her for three minutes without perceiving that she was well-born and well-bred. She had hurt her leg, which was the cause of her lying on the sofa. It seemed a grievous penance, as she is of as active a temper as ever. She says her health is perfect, but a nervous disease in her eyes has nearly deprived her of sight—she could hardly see my face, though I sat as close as I could go to ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... such evils as the following, and avoid them, because they all carry scandal in their nature to your own and others' souls: as, 1. Proud, disdainful, and haughty words conduct, and conversation; for these are grievous and provoking evils, which will justly offend all the observers of them. 2. Sullen, sour, and churlish language and behavior, which is offensive unto all sorts of persons; for this is an evil altogether unbecoming the followers of Jesus Christ. 3. A cross, captious, ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... of evil fiercely did harass, The ill-planning death-shade, both elder and younger, Trapping and tricking them. He trod every night then The mist-covered moor-fens; men do not know where Witches and wizards wander and ramble. 50 So the foe of mankind many of evils Grievous injuries, often accomplished, Horrible hermit; Heort he frequented, Gem-bedecked palace, when night-shades ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin

... libel and a coarse slander," he muttered, and hastened on his way. "Am I answerable," he asked himself, "for the abuse which others may make of what I take moderately and innocently? Absurd! And yet it's a pity, a grievous pity, that it should be possible for such poor ignorant creatures to speak thus of any of our holy calling, and so ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... and rolling thunders symbolise the fierce light which it casts upon men's duty and the terrors of its retribution. Inflexible, and with no compassion for human weakness, it tells us what we ought to be, but it does not help us to be it. It 'binds heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne,' upon men's consciences, but puts not forth 'the tip of a finger' to enable men to bear them. And this is true about law in all forms, whether it be the Mosaic Law, or whether it be the law of our own country, or whether it be the laws written upon men's consciences. These all partake ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... the punishment of death peculiarly appropriate, in our estimation, in the crime of murder, is not by any means its retaliative character; the sentiment, that "blood must have blood," is one which we have no desire to foster; and if some less grievous penalty would have the same effect in deterring from the crime, we should, of course, willingly adopt it. Our ground of approval is this, that it presents to the mind an antagonist idea most fit to encounter the temptation to the crime. As this temptation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... she but a soiled thing! The tenderness of his first passion had sprung amid the rank growth of her past with its sordid little drama. And the soil in her fate had tarnished their lives ever since, until this grievous... ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... that for a long time this also has been the public and most grievous complaint of all good men that Masses have been basely profaned and applied to purposes of lucre. For it is not unknown how far this abuse obtains in all the churches by what manner of men Masses are said only for fees or stipends, and how many celebrate ...
— The Confession of Faith • Various

... never gout in the hands or feet, no catarrh, nor sciatica, nor grievous colics, nor flatulency, nor hard breathing. For these diseases are caused by indigestion and flatulency, and by frugality and exercise they remove every humour and spasm. Wherefore it is unseemly in the extreme to be seen vomiting or spitting, since they say ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... indeed. It would have been strange if he had been unhappy, when she, who made his tastes her study, also made it the business of her life to please him. Besides, his cheerful temper enabled him to make light of more grievous misfortunes than the getting of a loving wife and thrifty helpmeet ten years older ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... be brutal, but the sharp cry of pain and the look of anguish on Leigh Shirley's face told how grievous was the wound ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... police, when there was any call for its interference, applied to the proprietor, who was to a certain extent responsible for his serfs. Thus the serf might live a tranquil, contented life, and die at a ripe old age, without ever having been conscious that serfage was a grievous burden. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... is to be noted that adulteries are more and less infernal and abominable. The adulteries that spring from more grievous evils and their falsities are more grievous, and those from the milder evils and their falsities are milder; for adulteries correspond to adulterations of good and consequent falsifications of truth; adulterations ...
— Spiritual Life and the Word of God • Emanuel Swedenborg

... now upon, though necessary, is very disagreeable to my natural make and temper, as I know it must be grievous to you, who are of the same species. But it is not my business to animadvert on the orders I have received, but to obey them; and therefore without hesitation I shall deliver to you His Majesty's instructions and commands, which are that your lands and tenements and cattle and live-stock ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... but you would have to show, if you went on with the action, that the damage complained of was of so grievous a nature that the ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

... Without having even covered her head; fasted and jaded? Had there been a quarrel. If so—about what? Had Bideabout beaten her? Had he thrust her out and locked the door? If so, in what had she offended him? Had she been guilty of some grievous misdemeanor? ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... if two women who are not on friendly terms happen thus to meet and are introduced, it would be a most grievous breach of etiquette not to acknowledge the introduction courteously and exchange a remark or two. Neither has a right to embarrass a hostess by airing a private animosity under the roof of a friend—or ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... one cause alarm by condemning them forthwith, because he sees that the person to whom they are granted is not perfect, for it is nothing new that our Lord in His goodness makes wicked people just, yea, even grievous sinners; by giving them to taste most deeply of His sweetness. I have seen it so myself. Who will set bounds to the goodness of our Lord?—especially when these graces are given, not for merit, nor because one is stronger; on the contrary, they are given ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... from the Christian religion, worshipped idols in their secret meetings, and had been guilty of horrible and shameful offences against God, the Church, the State, and humanity itself. Philip professed the most pious horror at what he had discovered; he lamented the grievous necessity laid upon him, and urged upon the guilty men the expediency of a full and immediate confession of their wicked doings as the only way to secure pardon and escape the just and extreme penalty of such ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... dreadful; horrid, horrible; dire; rank, peccant, foul, fulsome; rotten, rotten at the core. vile, base, villainous; mean &c (paltry) 643; injured &c; deteriorated &c 659; unsatisfactory, exceptionable indifferent; below par &c (imperfect) 651; illcontrived, ill-conditioned; wretched, sad, grievous, deplorable, lamentable; pitiful, pitiable, woeful &c (painful) 830. evil, wrong; depraved &c 945; shocking; reprehensible &c (disapprove) 932. hateful, hateful as a toad; abominable, detestable, execrable, cursed, accursed, confounded; damned, damnable; infernal; diabolic &c (malevolent) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... then, back in its place, rather high up—there it was, to be sure! But such a disappointment! She could have seen it there, though it was rather out of reach for her eyesight. But alas!—it was wrapped up again in that cloth. It was a grievous disappointment. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... and at six for that of the whole Day. After which, one would think that they imagine themselves at perfect Liberty; and their open Gallantries perfectly countenance the Imagination: for tho' Adultery is look'd upon as a grievous Crime, and punish'd accordingly; yet Fornication is softened with the title of a Venial Sin, and they seem to practise ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe

... succeeding centuries. In common with the rest of Europe, and in consequence of an inevitable alteration of their mental bias, they had lost the blithe spontaneity of the Renaissance. But they were at the same time suffering from grievous exhaustion, humiliated by the tyranny of foreign despotism, and terrorized by ecclesiastical intolerance. In their case, therefore, a sort of moral and intellectual atrophy becomes gradually more and more perceptible. The clear artistic sense of rightness and of ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... awful to think on. T'other family will some day or other gather them all up, put them into a bundle and bind them up tight, and condemn 'em as fit for nothin' under the sun, but the fire. Now he who splits one of these here sects by schism, or he who preaches schism, commits a grievous sin; and Sam, if you vally your own peace of mind, have nothin' to ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... were mistaken. So much the contrary, that the squire of Lexley Park made a particular point of being the first and latest of the guests—not only because his reconciliation with his new neighbour was so recent, but from not choosing to authenticate, by his absence, the rumours of his grievous disappointment. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... the Oratory with Father de Berulle, who had never doubted his innocence. He hastened to assure his old roommate that he desired no such apology and begged him to say no more about the matter. Such was his treatment of the man who had done him so grievous an injury. ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes

... energies were bent upon strengthening the Treasury and opposing reckless expenditures. His most grievous disappointment, however, was in the refusal of Congress to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States. He used every possible effort to save this institution, which, in the condition of the country, was indispensable to a sound currency and the ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... obliged to be withdrawn. The party sent to Cheat Mountain to take that in rear had also to be withdrawn. The attack to come off the east side failed from the difficulties in the way; the opportunity was lost, and our plan discovered. It is a grievous disappointment to me, I assure you. but for the rain-storm, I have no doubt it would have succeeded. This, Governor, is for your own eye. Please do not speak of it; we must try again. Our greatest loss is the death of my dear friend, ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... stranger here, M. Seneschal," said Folgat: "I do not know the manner of thinking, the customs, the interests, the prejudices, of this country; in fact, I am totally ignorant, and I know I would commit many a grievous blunder, unless I could secure the assistance of an able and experienced counsellor. M. de Boiscoran and M. de Chandore have both encouraged me to hope that I might find such a ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... first place, any one who contracts a "Mixed Marriage" without a dispensation from the Holy See and before a Protestant Minister or a Registrar is, by the very fact, guilty of a most grievous mortal sin by violating a solemn law of the Church in a most ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... success, for how otherwise could so many become millionaires? Just what the remedy is I do not know, but I want to give you the facts so that in recasting the laws you may plan something to alleviate a grievous wrong." ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... am back, and why I am living alone save for the servants; and some don't approve. That the once charity child who lived at the asylum should now own Tree Hill is something of a trial, and that it could happen without their knowledge or consent is grievous unto them. But they have been so good to me, all the old friends; are glad, they say, to have me back, and I am so happy to be back. There have been changes, but not many. The mills and factories have brought new people, some of the old ones have died, the little ones grown up, several ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with his blue eyes, as his manner always was ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... expectation from him suspended, at least, and who could say how long? Who could say when they might meet again? And all this by such a man as General Tilney, so polite, so well bred, and heretofore so particularly fond of her! It was as incomprehensible as it was mortifying and grievous. From what it could arise, and where it would end, were considerations of equal perplexity and alarm. The manner in which it was done so grossly uncivil, hurrying her away without any reference to her own convenience, or allowing ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... had heard, there was "one hull room mighty nigh plum full o' nothin' but books"; a grievous waste, indeed, when one already "had a book." It was the front room, opposite the parlour, and every door and window in it could be securely bolted from the inside. If any one desired unbroken privacy, it could be had in the library as nowhere ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed

... dreading the consequence of such a leap, when a chair happening to pass, he laid hold on the opportunity, and by an exertion of his muscles, pitched upon the top of the carriage, which was immediately overturned in the kennel, to the grievous annoyance of the fare, which happened to be a certain effeminate beau, in full dress, on his ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... Admiralty have thrown blame on me, and should have represented to my greatest and best friend that I had gotten the ship on shore, had let a prisoner escape, and three of my men run away, without adding the attendant circumstances, is most mortifying and grievous to me; but it is impossible to express so gratefully as I feel the anxious concern with which you took the part of one who has not the least claim to ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... fundamental to their position. "I think," said the Bishop of Worcester on his death-bed, "I could suffer at a stake rather than take this oath." That, indeed, represents the general temper. Many of them did not doubt that James had done grievous wrong; but they had taken the oath of allegiance to him, and they saw in their conscience no means of escape from their vow. "Their Majesties," writes the author of the account of Bishop Lake's death, "are the two persons in the world whose ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... prejudices, took occasion from the book of the Satisfaction of Christ to accuse the author of Semi-pelagianism. He did not think it worth while to defend himself against an anonymous author[125], because in his book of the Piety of the States of Holland he had spoken of Semi-pelagianism as a very grievous error. Afterwards he enquired in an express treatise, whether the Arminians were Pelagians, and fully cleared them of ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... So grievous is the spell, the trance so deep, Loud though we call, my hope is faint that e'er She yet will waken from her heavy sleep: But not, methinks, without some better end Was this our Rome entrusted to thy care, Who surest may revive and best defend. Fearlessly then upon that ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... lacking, or miscarry and degenerate:—these are OUR real anxieties and glooms, ye know it well, ye free spirits! these are the heavy distant thoughts and storms which sweep across the heaven of OUR life. There are few pains so grievous as to have seen, divined, or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his way and deteriorated; but he who has the rare eye for the universal danger of "man" himself DETERIORATING, he who like ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... went out against him, and retreated in skirmish order. And thus he fell into my ambush. Drums and kettledrums sounded together, the ring closed around them on all sides and the robber army suffered a grievous defeat. The dead lay about like hemp-stalks, but little Tschauna succeeded in breaking through the circle. I sent out the light horsemen after him, and they seized him before the tent of the enemy's commanding general. Hastily I sent word to ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... sudden subversion of preconceived theories, the sudden alteration of long habit, or even the occurrence of any circumstance beyond the walk of our daily experience. This I have observed myself in the perturbing effect which a sudden death, a grievous accident, or in recent years the declaration of war, has exercised upon all except the most lethargic or the most determined minds. Secondly, he experienced the profound self-abasement or mental annihilation caused by ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner



Words linked to "Grievous" :   sorrowful, important, critical, evil, of import



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