Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Offspring   /ˈɔfsprˌɪŋ/   Listen
Offspring

noun
1.
The immediate descendants of a person.  Synonyms: issue, progeny.  "He died without issue"
2.
Something that comes into existence as a result.  Synonyms: materialisation, materialization.  "This skyscraper is the solid materialization of his efforts"
3.
Any immature animal.  Synonym: young.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Offspring" Quotes from Famous Books



... invention. I trust it will not be deemed egotistical on my part if, while conscious of the unfeigned desire to concede to all who are attempting improvements in the art of telegraphy that which belongs to them, I should now and then recognize the familiar features of my own offspring and ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... first that had been dropped, both stopped, and appeared to lick and caress it. They remained by it but a moment. One parted sooner than the other—the female it was, no doubt, in search of her second offspring. Shortly after the other started also, and both were again seen springing along the trail in pursuit. A few stretches brought them to where the second cub lay, and here they again halted, caressing this one as ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... the happiest couple in the world. Being blessed with the negative blessing of no offspring, the stream of their affections was not diverted into little channels, but ebbed and flowed in one uninterrupted tide reciprocally from bosom to bosom. They never disputed, they never quarrelled. Yes, they did sometimes, but then it ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... cord. The good legislator can implant by education the higher principles; and where they exist there is no difficulty in inserting the lesser human bonds, by which the State is held together; these are the laws of intermarriage, and of union for the sake of offspring. Most persons in their marriages seek after wealth or power; or they are clannish, and choose those who are like themselves,—the temperate marrying the temperate, and the courageous the courageous. The two classes thrive and flourish at first, but they ...
— Statesman • Plato

... her heavy burden, And the pain it brought upon her, Seven long centuries together, Nine times longer than a lifetime. 140 Yet no child was fashioned from her, And no offspring was perfected. ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... a wife recommended by Rochester. The wife brought him a child six months after marriage, and the infant was born on the same day the comedy was acted. Luckily for the honour of the house, my uncle shared the fate of Plemneus, king of Sicyon, and all the offspring he ever had (that is to say, the child and the play) "died as soon as they were born." My uncle was now only at a loss what to do with his wife,—that remaining treasure, whose readiness to oblige ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... early days, and above all to our early love of gardens. Our enthusiasm was then unaffected and uninfluenced by great examples; we had neither heard nor read of Lord Bacon nor Sir William Temple, nor any other illustrious writer on gardening; but this love was the pure offspring of our own mind and heart. Planting and transplanting were our delight; the seed which our tiny hands let fall into the bosom of the earth, we almost watched peeping through little clods, after ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various

... a university of his own. The Reformation increased the spirit of rivalry. Most of these second- and third-rate universities have passed away or have been merged in others. The three youngest, Berlin, Munich and Strasburg, are all in large cities, and are all three the direct offspring of political and educational reorganization. As Germany is now constituted, it would be impossible to found a new university in a small town. Such places as Jena, Erlangen, Greifswald, Rostock, Marburg and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, The fifth shall close the drama of the day: Time's noblest offspring ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... endured, as you know, in quitting the earthly mansion of my fathers, and in encountering the dangers of sea and land for the faith; and, rather than let go its hold, will I once more cheerfully devote to the howling wilderness, ease, offspring, and, should it be the will of Providence, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... announced of a band of slavers, and they all rush out, some to face their terrible adversaries while the others take up the nymphs and eggs in their mandibles and flee in all directions to save as many as possible of their offspring. The small ants endeavour with their burdens to climb to the summits of blades of grass; those who succeed are in safety with the eggs that they carry, for the Amazons do not climb. In the meanwhile a fierce battle is going on in the neighbourhood of the nest between the Formica fusca, who ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... Street is perhaps scarcely bracing enough for strengthening the constitution of the Orphans, most of whom, being the offspring of very diseased parents, require a very invigorating place ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller

... development. If this modification does not involve the production of substances capable of changing the germ-plasm, or does not so affect nutrition as to deprive the germ-plasm of certain of its elements, it will have no effect on the offspring of the individual. This is probably the case as a rule. If, on the contrary, it has some effect, this is likely to be due to a chemical change which it has induced in the germ-plasm. This chemical change might, by exception, bring about the original modification again in the organism which ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... if his young wife had no promise of offspring as yet, she would remain childless ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... "Thou treatest boys as boys, youths with strength, old men calmly, according as is not only the age of the body, but also of the mind of each. Women thou subjectest to their husbands in chaste and faithful obedience, not for the satisfaction of lust, but for the propagation of offspring, and participation in the affairs of the family. Thou settest husbands over their spouses, not that they may trifle with the weaker sex, but in accordance with the laws of true affection. Thou subjectest sons to their ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... the lives of many thousands, the destruction of cities, towns, and countries, which to put to the fortune of war how perilous it were, I pray consider. Think ye, ye see the mothers left alive tendering their offspring in your presence, 'nam matribus detestata bells,'" continued the orator. "Think also of others of all sexes, ages, and conditions, on their knees before your Alteza, most humbly praying and crying most dolorously to spare their lives, and save their property from the ensanguined scourge ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... offspring of hecastotheism. As the primitive believer assigns special potency or mystery to the strong and the swift, he gradually comes to give exceptional rank to self-moving animals; as his experience of ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee

... and the best of all the main, He quarters to his blue-haired deities; And all this tract that fronts the falling sun A noble Peer of mickle trust and power Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide An old and haughty nation, proud in arms: Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore, Are coming to attend their father's state, And new-intrusted sceptre. But their way Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood, The nodding horror of whose shady ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton

... the eight years' interregnum had materially weakened her ascendancy over her now grown-up offspring. Her husband, however, never accomplished anything great in the political world after her return; the strain of trying to account satisfactorily for an unspecified expenditure of sixteen thousand pounds spread over eight years sufficiently ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... God's mercy is over all His works, and that He understands the hearts of all people, and fashions all their works. And St. Paul told these old Greeks in after times, when they had grown wicked and fallen low, that they ought to have known better, because they were God's offspring, as their own poets had said; and that the good God had put them where they were, to seek the Lord, and feel after Him, and find Him, though He was not far from any one of them. And Clement of Alexandria, a great Father of the Church, who was as wise as he was good, said ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley

... at Milsham is an inscription of Isaac Self, a wealthy cloathiers of that place, who died in the 92nd yeare of his age, leaving behind him a numerous offspring; viz. ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey

... spirit for every member of the human family since Adam, is it not a contradiction of Gen. 2:2, which declares that all God's work of creation, so far as it pertains to this world, was completed by the close of the first week of time? Again, how many of the inhabitants of this earth are the offspring of abandoned criminality; and can it be supposed that God holds himself in readiness to create souls which must come from his hands pure as the dew of heaven, to be thrust into such vile tenements, and doomed to a life ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... it about through the mental spaces as a reflection is sent back and forward in a saloon lined with mirrors. With this altered image of the woman before him, his preexisting ideal becomes blended. The object of his love is in part the offspring of her legal parents, but more of her lover's brain. The difference between the real and the ideal objects of love must not exceed a fixed maximum. The heart's vision cannot unite them stereoscopically into a single image, if ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... his peaked shoulders. "Feraud of sorts. Offspring of a blacksmith and some village troll. See what comes of mixing yourself up ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... of artificers are sedentary, (5) we, the rest of the Hellenes, are content that our girls should sit quietly and work wools. That is all we demand of them. But how are we to expect that women nurtured in this fashion should produce a splendid offspring? ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon

... of the sort there may be; only to pass through upon thy way! Thy purpose was to return to thy country; to relieve thy kinsmen's fears for thee; thyself to discharge the duties of a citizen; to marry a wife, to beget offspring, and to fill the appointed round of office. Thou didst not come to choose out what places are most pleasant; but rather to return to that wherein thou wast born and where wert appointed to ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... watching for his prey, crouched in the long grass of the river's bank, tearing it with claws and teeth, growling as he ate. So he lived and died through the dim unnamed ages, transmitting his beast's blood, his bestial instincts, to his offspring, growing ever stronger, fiercer, from generation to generation, while the rocks piled up their strata and the oceans shaped their beds. Moses! Why, Lord Rothschild's great-grandfather, a few score times removed, must have known Moses, talked with him. Babylon! It is a modern city, fallen into ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... from yourself and others of your noble family, and much honour from your own person in the performance, now returns again to make a final Dedication of itself to you. Although not openly acknowledged by the Author, yet it is a legitimate offspring, so lovely and so much desired that the often copying of it hath tired my pen to give my several friends satisfaction, and brought me to a necessity of producing it to the public view; and now to offer ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... creation is exercised unthoughtfully, unwisely, and often wickedly. A good-for-nothing scamp may become a father in name; but he who attains to that holy title in fact, must do as God does,—must love, cherish, sustain and make sacrifices for his child until his offspring becomes old enough and strong enough to stand for himself,—Don't you think ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson

... fostered this lamentable depravity; for his misfortunes as an exiled king by no means prevented him following his inclinations as an ardent lover. Accordingly, his intrigues at that time were numerous, as may be judged from the fact of Lady Byron being described as "his seventeenth mistress abroad." The offspring of one of his continental mistresses was destined to plunge the English nation into civil warfare, and to suffer a traitor's death on Tower ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... Meroni; but now jealousy sprang up in her. If Claude were with Adelaide Shiffney in that box while she sat alone! If Claude had really known all the time that Adelaide Shiffney was coming and had not told her, Charmian! Unreason, which is the offspring of jealousy, filled her mind. She ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... locution had something of a Hoosier accent "After a good deal of trouble in catching him, I have finally succeeded in bringing you in this—a—this little dev"—he made an impressive pause, patted his fiery offspring on the head with fatherly dignity, and eyed him, at ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... attacks on America. Much of what has been written is unmitigated fraud, that has been meant to produce an impression on the public mind, careless of any other object than the end; but much also, I think, has really been imagined to be true, while it is, in fact, the offspring of the prejudices that studied misrepresentation has so deeply implanted in the opinions of Europe. As we are not immaculate, of course, a greater portion of their charges is true than one could wish. Some of the allegations are so absurd, that it may amuse you to ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... abruptly stopped fanning himself, and, following the direction of his gaze, Mrs. Baxter ceased to rock. In half-completed attitudes they leaned slightly forward, sharing one of those pauses of parents who unexpectedly behold their offspring. ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington

... pianoforte, as made in America and Germany. Of priority of invention he says, in a letter to an English friend, "If it were desirable to analyze all the inventions which have been brought forward, we should find that in scarcely any instance were they the offspring of the brain of a single individual, but that all progress is gradual only; each worker follows in the track of his predecessor, and eventually, perhaps, advances a step beyond him." And concerning the relative value of inventions in musical instruments, it appears, from an ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various

... Moscow. He was reared at first in strict seclusion behind the silken curtains that guarded the windows of the Terem, where the women lived. Then rebellion broke out after his father's death; for Alexis had children by two marriages, and the offspring of his first wife, Mary Miloslavski, were jealous of the influence acquired by the relatives of ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... ladyship and the Captain, this afternoon questioned me in regard to my knowledge of the affair, and the use I intended to make of that knowledge; and he, not deeming my replies satisfactory, abused and struck me. My duty to your lordship prevented any retaliation on my part; and that duty, (the offspring of humble gratitude for your lordship's many acts of generous kindness to me, both in this country and in France,) now impels me to communicate these unpleasant facts—which I do, with sincere sorrow for her ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... Light, offspring of Heaven first-born! Or of the Eternal coeternal beam {184} May I express thee unblamed? Since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate! Or hearest thou rather pure Ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... So he began "Mrs. Bibs' Baby," and felt humiliated and disappointed when the public showed no glimmer of interest in it, and he was soon induced by his own good sense and the editorial hint to desert his latest offspring. ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... the animal kingdom! They know how to get food from the juice of the leaves suited to them, and afterward at the appointed time to invest themselves with a covering and enter as it were into a womb, and thus hatch offspring of their own kind. Some are first turned into nymphs and chrysalides, spinning threads about themselves; and this travail being over they come forth clad with a different body, furnished with wings with which they fly in the air as in their ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg

... aught. Hence therefore mayst thou understand, that all Our knowledge in that instant shall expire, When on futurity the portals close." Then conscious of my fault, and by remorse Smitten, I added thus: "Now shalt thou say To him there fallen, that his offspring still Is to the living join'd; and bid him know, That if from answer silent I abstain'd, 'Twas that my thought was occupied intent Upon that error, which thy help hath solv'd." But now my master summoning me back I heard, and with more eager haste besought The spirit to inform ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... when they are not, by abundant testimony of the medical fraternity, continuance for a long time on her feet at work, repeating this from day to day, tends to injurious effects upon her body, and as healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring, the physical well-being of woman becomes an object of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt

... person, and will labour, whatever shall become of me, for whom these adversaries so often augur the gallows, as though I were an enemy of thy life. Hail, good Cross. There will come, Elizabeth, the day, that day which will show thee clearly which have loved thee, the Society of Jesus or the offspring ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... authors Borrow appears greater than his books, though he is their offspring. It is one of his great achievements to have made his books bring forth this lusty and mysterious figure which moves to and fro in all of them, worthy of the finest scenes and making the duller ones acceptable. He is not greater than his books in the sense that he is greater ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... between himself and the candidate about to speak was that old Walker, whose only son the latter was, had married a widow with one son, by name Ernest Breslaw. Both these parents were now dead, leaving the step-brothers as their only offspring. The lads had been reared together, and though of utterly different tastes and callings, a mutual regard existed between them. Walker had passed his examinations at the bar, and Breslaw had been trained to electrical engineering, but both being wealthy, neither followed ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... on any worthy Action done for my Country? If I had laid out that which I profused in Luxury and Wantonness, in Acts of Generosity or Charity? I have lived a Batchelor to this Day; and instead of a numerous Offspring, with which, in the regular Ways of Life, I might possibly have delighted my self, I have only to amuse my self with the Repetition of Old Stories and Intrigues which no one will believe I ever was concerned in. I do ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... anything out of the way!" goody Liu said. "Affluent and honourable people bring up their offspring to be delicate. So naturally, they are not able to endure the least hardship! Moreover, that young child of yours is so excessively cuddled that she can't stand it. Were you, therefore, my lady, to pamper her less from henceforth, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... containing two goddesses produced no legitimate offspring, and was unsatisfactory to a people who regarded the lack of progeny as a curse from heaven; one in which the presence of a son promised to ensure the perpetuity of the race was more in keeping with the idea of a blessed and prosperous family, as that of gods should be. Triads of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... text, when the empire has "assumed the livery of heaven,"—professedly in the interest of Christ, then it is that the devil bestirs himself. Like his prototype, he dreads the growth and power of the woman's offspring. Under pagan Rome's persecutions, "the more God's people were afflicted, the more they multiplied and grew." Now the adversary shapes his policy accordingly.—"Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply."—His ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... discovered my friend Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber genteelly, and without addressing himself particularly to anyone, 'not in solitude, but partaking of a social meal in company with a widow lady, and one who is apparently her offspring—in short,' said Mr. Micawber, in another of his bursts of confidence, 'her son. I shall esteem it ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... fellows are in politic function or in ordinary occupation. They have a right to the fruits of their industry, and to the means of making their industry fruitful. They have a right to the acquisitions of their parents, to the nourishment and improvement of their offspring, to instruction in life and to consolation in death. Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... her by her appearance I should probably have done so by her occupation at that moment, for she was engaged in chastising her offspring with all the vehemence and all the cruelty of her former performances. But in the present case there was a difference. Billy, instead of taking his castigation meekly, as before, was violently resisting ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... in Skinner Street there was now gathered a group of miscellaneous inmates—Fanny Imlay, the daughter of his first wife, Mary Wollstonecraft; Mary, his own daughter by the same marriage; his second wife, and her two children, Claire and Charles Clairmont, the offspring of a previous union. From this connexion with the Godwin household events of the gravest importance in the future were destined to arise, and already it appears that Fanny Imlay had begun to look with perilous approval on the fascinating poet. Hogg and Mr. Peacock, the well-known novelist, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... you strike down the children in the cottage you attack also the children in the palace. If you darken the lives and destroy the hopes of the humble dwellers of the country, you also darken the prospects of those children the offspring of your Queen, in whom are bound up so much of the interests and so much of the hopes of the people of this country. If I defend, therefore, the interests of the people on this point, I do not the less defend the permanence of the ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... anonymous slander of the one was circulated through all France by the other; and spleen and disappointment feathered the venomed arrows shot at the heart of power by malice and ambition. Be the charge true or false, these anonymous libels were generally considered as the offspring of this lady: they were industriously scattered by the Duc d'Orleans; and their frequent refutation by the Queen's friends only increased the malignant ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe

... is. She feels that we are flattered by the preference her offspring show for our society; but between ourselves, Cleena, I think it's more raisin-bread than affection. You made a dire mistake in ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... perpetually imprinted in both beasts and men (which is not without controversy), I can say, that in my opinion, next to the care every animal has of its own preservation, and to avoid that which may hurt him, the affection that the begetter bears to his offspring holds the second place in this rank. And seeing that nature appears to have recommended it to us, having regard to the extension and progression of the successive pieces of this machine of hers, 'tis no wonder ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... to appreciate the amount of gratuitous labor performed by the officers and committees of private book clubs. It is erroneous to suppose that beautiful books are a purely natural offspring of the book club. The preparation of the material for publication and successfully following it through all the various stages of manufacture requires an enormous amount of detail work, as well as an accurate knowledge of bookmaking. The president of a prominent ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper

... the brainy people of the world are not born of very youthful parents; you will find youth gives physique, maturity gives brains to offspring. ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... mere paternal affection, with Isaac were identified all the hopes and promises which had been held out to Abraham by God himself of becoming the father of a mighty and favored race. His affection as a father was strained to its utmost tension, but yet more was his faith in being the progenitor of offspring that should inherit the land of Canaan. Nevertheless, at God's command he was willing to make the sacrifice, "accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead." Was there ever such a supreme act of obedience in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... Will, that force unseen, The offspring of a deathless Soul, Can hew the way to any goal, Though walls ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... himself, but somewhere outside in space. And so—an ingenious idea!—it is not only he who is dissolute, false, and disgusting, but we . . . 'we men of the eighties,' 'we the spiritless, nervous offspring of the serf-owning class'; 'civilisation has crippled us' . . . in fact, we are to understand that such a great man as Laevsky is great even in his fall: that his dissoluteness, his lack of culture ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... midnight had I come to draw the river's limpid flood, And here am struck to death, by whom? ah whose this wrongful deed of blood? Alas! and in my parents' heart, the old, the blind, and hardly fed, In the wild wood, hath pierced the dart, that here hath struck their offspring dead. Ah, deed most profitless as worst, a deed of wanton useless guilt: As though a pupil's hand accurs'd his holy master's blood had spilt. But not mine own untimely fate,—it is not that which I deplore. My blind, my aged parents' state—'tis their distress afflicts me more. ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... of course not the worldly station of men is meant, but the history of their lives and reputations, as good and useful men of their time. Of necessity both parents affect the character of their offspring, and so we frequently see a great and good man leaving behind him none in his family capable of supplying his place. Now, how is this? Why, it comes from the mistake he has made in selecting his mate, for if he had been more cautious in that respect the produce ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... live, in whatever respect, or respects, their superiority of fitness may consist. Hence it follows that Nature, so to speak, selects the best individuals out of each generation to live. And not only so; but as these favoured individuals transmit their favourable qualities to their offspring, according to the fixed laws of heredity, it further follows that the individuals composing each successive generation have a general tendency to be better suited to their surroundings than were their forefathers. ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... assumed the imperial title, his hopes of offspring from this union were at an end; and, at least from the hour in which his authority was declared to be hereditary, Josephine must have begun to suspect that, in his case also, the ties of domestic life might be sacrificed to those views ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... self-manifestation to the world. He read the description of his two main characteristics, his grasp upon words and facts; "words, the daughters of earth, were wedded in this man to facts, the sons of heaven, and Superman was their offspring." His minor characteristics, too, were noticed, his appetite for literature, his astonishing memory, his linguistic powers. He possessed, it appeared, both the telescopic and the microscopic eye—he discerned world-wide tendencies and ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... preferred the new arrangement, if his wife and family were happy and contented, to a domestic system founded on his own principles, accompanied by a sullen or shrewish partner of his own life and rebellious offspring. ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... France a serious calamity, and that the executive ought not, by echoing her praises, to nourish that disposition. In his opinion, the balance of commercial favors was decidedly with the British; the commercial offers made by France were the offspring of the moment, growing out of circumstances that could not last. To evade Hamilton's objections, Jefferson consented to some modifications of the message. Hamilton then insisted that the papers relating to the non-execution of the treaty of peace, and to the stopping of the corn-ships, ought ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... his limbs might be severed and be compelled to wander in restless torment forever. They called anathemas upon his unborn children; and of their dead, who should be imprisoned in darkness in the depths of the sea, they furiously invoked upon Annadoah's offspring the curse of the long night . . . Their voices shuddered over the ice as they demanded that most dreadful of all dreaded evils—that Annadoah's child might be born as blind to light and the joy of light as the ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre

... "A Feraud of sorts. Offspring of a blacksmith and some village troll.... See what comes of mixing yourself up with that sort ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad

... considerable part of their existence, multiply themselves by means of a kind of internal budding, the buds being developed into essentially asexual animals, which are neither male nor female; they become converted into young 'Aphides', which repeat the process, and their offspring after them, and so on again; you may go on for nine or ten, or even twenty or more successions; and there is no very good reason to say how soon it might terminate, or how long it might not go on if the proper conditions of warmth and nourishment ...
— The Perpetuation Of Living Beings, Hereditary Transmission And Variation • Thomas H. Huxley

... of wild horses that abound in some of the prairies, are supposed to be the offspring of Spanish horses, brought to Mexico by Europeans. They are extremely shy, keen in their sight and swift of foot, so that to come up with them, except by surprise, is no easy thing. I have seen them in great numbers ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... an honest heart, And cheer'd the labours of a faithful spouse; That virtue form'd for every decent part The healthful offspring that adorn'd their house." ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... privately-published Tales of Taliessin. In short such happiness radiated from his pink-cheeked face and recovered eyes that David regretted in no wise his own lapses into conventional, stereotyped religion. The Church of Britain might be stiff and stomachered, as the offspring of Elizabeth, but it was stately, it was respectable—as outwardly was the great virgin Queen—and it was easy to live with. Only he counselled his father to do two things: never to preach for more than half-an-hour—even if it meant keeping a small American clock going inside ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... ben-Eleazar, High priest in Prague, oldest and most revered, To greet the star of Israel. As a father Yearns toward his son, so toward the noble Raschi Leapt at first sight the patriarch's fresh old heart. "My home be thine in Prague! Be thou my son, Who have no offspring save one simple girl. See, glorious youth, who dost renew the days Of David and of Samuel, early graced With God's anointing oil, how Israel Delights to honor who hath honored him." Then Raschi, though he felt a ball of fire Globe itself ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... that we are putting flippant expressions into the mouth of Rainiharo, we may explain that the Malagasy define an ungrateful man as the "son of a thunderbolt," and sometimes as the "offspring of a wild-boar," because—so they say—the young of the wild-boar, when running by the side of its dam, continually gets in advance and turns round to bite her. The ingratitude of which our friend ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... People who are the offspring of nervous parents and who have had a nervous breakdown should not eat commercial sugar, eggs, or animal food of any kind whatever. These statements may seem wholly unimportant to some people, but I realize what a tremendous ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle

... lifted it on his shoulders and bore it to its airy elevation was the incompressible force of water, a fluid which is, strangely, the simple product of the combination of two elastic transparent gases, oxygen and hydrogen, neither of which apart has the thew and sinew of its offspring. Nay, it is this single element, which, acted on by heat or acting through machinery, fetches and carries for us over the wide globe, and is fast weaving into one living web the ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness

... "Very well, offspring of sebel," he hissed between his white teeth. "We will test thy resolution, and cause thee to eat thy brave words. Thy body shall be racked by the torture, and thy flesh given unto the ants to eat." Then, turning to the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... Since that time the late Buffalo Jones has bred buffalo and domestic cattle and called the offspring "catelow."] ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... had just the effect he designed it to have. It was an apology for the children, as it classed them with other real children, in contradistinction to the imaginary offspring of the unmarried, that are known by every one to be faultless ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur

... marriage, is not the means "for the procreation of children," but for the humanisation of the offspring procreated. Therefore, in the Declaration at the beginning, after the words "procreation of children," I would insert, "and as the means of securing to the children procreated enduring care, and ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... you out of the maze into a new gaudy lecture-room where MacCann, with one hand on THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES and the other hand on the new testament, tells you that you admired the great flanks of Venus because you felt that she would bear you burly offspring and admired her great breasts because you felt that she would give good milk ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... plunder of their more peaceful neighbours. As was prophesied of Ishmael, so could it have been prophesied of the Amalekites, that their "hand should be against every man, and every man's hand against" them. They were the wild offspring of the wilderness, and accounted the first-born of ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce

... fate of fathers to be disappointed in their offspring, and to see the sons who ought to have been their honor and glory the scourge to punish their worldly aspirations," exclaimed the ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... more than 100 slaves who were mated indiscriminately and without any regard for family unions. If their master thought that a certain man and woman might have strong, healthy offspring, he forced them to have sexual relation, even though they were married to other slaves. If there seemed to be any slight reluctance on the part of either of the unfortunate ones "Big Jim" would make them consummate this relationship ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... two only respecting the language spoken at Strasbourg. From the relative situation of the town, this language would necessarily be of a mixed character: that is to say, there would be intermarriages between the Germans and French—and the offspring of such marriages would necessarily speak a patois. This seems to be generally admitted. The ancient language of Strasbourg is said to have been the pure dialect of Suabia; but, at present, the dialect of Saxony, which is thought to be purer as well as more fashionable, is carefully ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... you leave her to her ennui, idle conversations, empty sermons, and silly books; so that, falling below herself, less than woman, even less than a child, she will have neither moral action, influence, nor maternal authority, over her own offspring. Well! you will have the time, as old age advances, to try in vain to do all over again what is not done twice, to follow in the steps of a son, who, from college to the schools, and from thence into the world, hardly knows his family; and who, if he travels ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... as the time may come when the said relatives supply, in their turn, the daily meal; and the support of parents in a land where poor-rates are unknown, has tended to place the present high premium on male offspring. Thus, though there is a great deal of poverty in China, there is very little absolute destitution, and the few wretched outcasts one does see in every Chinese town, are almost invariably the once opulent ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... For it fell into the hands of Murad Ault. He coveted it as the most striking symbol of the position he had conquered in the metropolis. Its semi-barbaric splendor appealed also to his passion for display. And it was notable that the taste of the rude lad of poverty—this uncultivated offspring of a wandering gypsy and herb—collector—perhaps she had ancient and noble blood in her veins—should be the same for material ostentation and luxury as that of the cultivated, fastidious Mavick ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Pearl or a dusky crinkle-headed Blanche escapes our logic; but who can think of a sullen Nancy? Its very sound, tossed about the nursery, would brighten a maiden even if she were peevish at the start. I once knew an excellent couple of the name of Bottom, who chose Ruby for their offspring; but I have no doubt that the infelicity was altered at the font. The fact is that most of our names grow in time to fit our figure and our character. Margaret and Helen sound thin or fat, agreeable or dull, as our friends and neighbors rise before us; ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks

... there are none now! But there were. Who cares for villains, or barbarians, or helots? And so England, and Athens, and Sparta, were free States; all the freemen in them were free. Long after Magna Charta, villains were sold with their "chattels and offspring," named in that order. Long after Magna Charta, it was law that "Le Seigniour poit rob, naufrer, et chastiser son villein a son volunt, salve que il ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... held fast and bound by heart. Not Orpheus, Linus, or great Hermes could Find words to make their rapture understood. No Muse, no Phoebus, hath this work inspired, But Jove himself, with heaven's own splendour fired. I see the nursing fingers of the day, And night as well, upon their offspring play— The silent glide of moon, that hushed their sleep, (As mother at her infant steals a peep) Anon, with pearly glances half withdrawn, The gentle hesitation of the dawn; I see the sun his ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore

... been there; what's that to you?' Then I said in Hungarian, 'Were you not originally called Krisstyan?' The old fellow was much surprised, and said, 'Yes.' 'Then, I am your son Theodor, your dear Theodor, your only offspring!' Ha! ha! Thanks to you, friend, I found my father, my long lost father, over there in the New World on the galley-slave's bench. Providence in its wonderful way had united the long-divided father and son! But may I beg you ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... their family, that He has instituted it, and given those cherished ones who "set like olive plants around their table." They are faithful to all natural duties, and make ample provision for the temporal wants of their offspring; the mother bends with untiring assiduity over the cradle of her babe, and ministers to all its wants, watching with delight every opening beauty of that bud of promise, and willingly sacrificing all for its good. With what rapture she catches its first lispings ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... cabin an' ketched him layin' it on with a wilier branch as thick as your thumb, an' her a screechin' like a wild-cat in a trap. Well, what happened inside the next minute made a friend o' her fer life,—an' an enemy o' him. You'd have thought any dootiful an' loyal offspring would o' tried to pull me off'n him, but all she done was to stand back an' egg me on, 'specially when I took to tannin' him with the same stick he'd been usin' on her. Seems like Mart's never felt very friendly to'ards me ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... seems constantly to be worse, as his labour is more. The effusions of passion, which exigence forces out, are for the most part striking and energetick; but whenever he solicits his invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of his throes is tumour, ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... creature feeding its young with the very blood of its bosom. But withal she had sense enough to know—being, as we have said, a small philosopher—that a mere bird, however endowed with the power of sustaining the lives of its offspring, could not save that of her sister, and therefore it behoved to be only the symbol of some power within the office over the door of which the said sign was suspended. Nor in all this was Annie Maconie more extravagant than are nineteen-twentieths of the thousand millions in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... taught. German and Russian produce the same tow-headed stock. With the downfall of the Russian army the Russian husband sometimes returned and though quite willing to assume responsibility for the new offspring, insisted on asking the Austrian substitute at his bed and board to leave. As often as not the Austrian left. There were always a better farm and frau to be had elsewhere, and some Russian women are ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... connected with the touch of Him who healed the sick and gave life to the dead, that would be of benefit to them; or, it may be, with more elevated conceptions of Christ's person, and more spiritual desires respecting the welfare of their offspring, believing that the blessing (which was symbolized by the touch and laying on of hands) of so exalted a Being would be of greater worth than mere health of body. The disciples, thinking that mere children were not worthy of the ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... pill. Rivalry between the two branches of the Serb race was intensified. Prince Nikola strove by a remarkable series of marriages to unite himself to any and all of the Powers by means of his numerous offspring. ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me; and this was long after I had come to Down. The solution, as I believe, is that the modified offspring of all dominant and increasing forms tend to become adapted to many and highly diversified places in the economy ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... admit such worship from the just? And bless the conscious of his heavenly right, Whose faith demands no evidence of sight? Yet grace divine full evidence has given; Witness! Thou earth! by his dread sufferings riven! Witness! Thou speaking firmament above! When God proclaim'd Him offspring of his love! Pleas'd to that blessed offspring to impart Prerogative divine, dominion of the heart! Exulting angels hail his sovereign sway; Attest his glory, his commands obey; And usher Him, whom e'en the demons own ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley

... trod of yore, When "Uncle Sam," our friend and brother, Or cousin, kicked up such a "bother" In 1812, and tried In vain to lower Britain's pride, By cutting from her parent side, By a Caesarean operation, The proudest offspring of the nation! The Union Jack, thank heaven! still Floats proudly over vale and hill, Of this Dominion grand of ours; And shattered be the vital powers, By fatal stroke, like that which slew, Sennacherib's Assyrian crew, Of him who's traitor hand shall dare ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett

... this silence all day despite the occasional suggestion of the old man that he should go for the police, and the aggrieved refrain of the old woman as to the length of her married life and the number of her offspring. ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... and began to read. Jurand bequeathed all his estates and his entire possessions to Danusia and her offspring, but, in case of her death without issue, to her husband Zbyszko of Bogdaniec. He finally recommended his will to the prince's care; so that, in case it contained anything unlawful, the prince's grace ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... we have cast them, when we took them off from her. Antichrist is described as the [Greek: anomos], as exalting himself above the yoke of religion and law. The spirit of lawlessness came in with the Reformation, and Liberalism is its offspring. ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... at finding my offspring thus scattered all over Europe. At supper Therese gave me news of Tiretta. He had entered the Dutch East India Company's service, but having been concerned in a revolt at Batavia, he had only escaped the gallows by flight—I had my own thoughts as to the similarity between his destiny and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... modern days is not always regarded as a blessing. But note the singular heartlessness betrayed in telling Job, all whose flocks and herds had been carried off, and his children laid dead in their festival chamber, that abundant possessions and offspring were the token of God's favour. The speaker seems serenely unconscious that he was saying anything that could drive a knife into the tortured man. He is so carried along on the waves of his own eloquence, and so absorbed in stringing together ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... peace and repose in the unquestioned ascendency of monarchical principles. Let us learn wisdom from her example. Let us remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom. Our own free institutions were not the offspring of our Revolution. They existed before. They were planted in the free charters of self-government under which the English colonies grew up, and our Revolution only freed us from the dominion of a foreign ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore

... had given birth to a son, the offspring of an illicit connection, who came into the world deaf and dumb. The unfortunate mother believed the calamity a punishment for her own sin. "Ah, would," said she, "that the affliction had fallen only upon me! Wretch that I am, my innocent child is punished for my offence!" This, idea haunted ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... means since you will have it so. If an author has a right to anything it is surely the right to name his offspring as he will. He need not even consult his wife—if he have one. But though you call your work an opera Mr. Gay, it is also a play. The songs are not everything—indeed, Mr. Rich would say they're nothing. Can ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... supposed that wild animals naturally or instinctively dread man, but it seems to me that, though no doubt a certain degree of dread of man may have been, after having been acquired by experience, transmitted to the offspring, wild animals require to be taught to dread man by their parents, for we find that if animals are caught when very young and are not confined in any way, they not only do not dread man, but eventually prefer his society to that of ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... one beneath it. And generally the "revolutionary, unprecedented discovery" has very little of itself that is new; rather it is a new combination of older, perhaps seemingly impractical knowledge. Every scientific theory, every device, is the offspring from a large and varied family tree of many scientific ancestors, each of whom in his day ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... by-and-by, and then hurriedly left the station, and drove straight to Mr. Medler's office, which was upon the ground floor of a gloomy old house in one of the dingier streets in the Soho district, and in the upper chambers whereof the attorney's wife and numerous offspring had their abode. He came down to his client from his unpretending breakfast-table in a faded dressing-gown, with smears of egg and greasy traces of buttered toast about the region of his mouth, and seemed not particularly pleased ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... to her consecrated virgins, those sisters of various Orders who in every large city of Christendom are daily reclaiming degraded women from a life of shame, and bringing them back to the sweet influences of religion; who snatch the abandoned offspring of sin from temporal and spiritual death, and make them pious and useful members of society, becoming more than mothers to them; who rescue children from ignorance, and instill into their minds the knowledge and ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... the eldest son alone, but to the whole number of male children equally. Lambarde, the eminent lawyer and antiquary (born 1536), author of A Perambulation of Kent,[5] says:—"I gather by Cornelius Tacitus, and others, that the ancient Germans, (whose Offspring we be) suffered their lands to descend, not to their eldest Sonne alone, but to the whole number of their male Children: and I finde in the 75th Chapter of Canutus Law (a King of this Realm before the Conquest), that after the death of the Father, his Heires should divide both his goods, ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... cattle and women lent [the return] is, their offspring: the highest encrease demandable for use of liquids[99] is eight-fold; for wearing apparel, for corn, and for gold, four-fold, three-fold and ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya

... went to liberate her wedged-in offspring, leaving me to flee to the house where I cooked my eggs and some ancient potatoes in the ashes of a fire smoldering in the wide old fireplace. I have since eaten royal dinners in palatial hotels, but nothing has ever tasted half as good as this extemporized lunch ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... important duty devolves upon the mother. After having brought into existence the offspring of the nuptial union, the children are dependent upon the mother as they are not upon any other human being. The trust is a most sacred, most responsible and most important one. She molds the character. She educates the heart ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... planet, but simply a star-shaped flame flitting through space. They knew what this meant. Observe, too, that they had no doubts upon the point; they came 'to worship him,' and provided themselves with gifts to offer to this radiant Guest, the offspring of pure Light. The vision of the angels appearing to the shepherds was simply a joyous band of the Singing Children of the Electric Ring, who out of pure interest and pleasure floated in sight of Earth, drawn thither ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... retrieve their fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, It's personal ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe

... misgivings Louis hardened his heart, put on his cap, walked out—a refined little figure—approached the object of his sympathy, and said, 'Will you let me play with you?' 'Go to hell!' said the democratic offspring of the baker. This lesson against doing good by stealth to persons of unknown or hostile disposition was, it seems, thrown away. Such endeavours are ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... numerous doors, which I am told give access to the apartments or cells occupied by the convent inmates. We pass a chamber where children's voices are heard. There is a school attached to the convent, for the benefit of those who desire their offspring to receive religious instruction from the nuns. Music and fancy needlework are also taught, and some of the distressed damsels, who, like Cachita, are undergoing a term of conventual imprisonment for similar offences, impose upon themselves a mild ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman



Words linked to "Offspring" :   illegitimate child, hatchling, young fish, illegitimate, young bird, love child, consequence, beast, baby, fauna, outcome, eldest, orphan, child, grandchild, creature, young, heir, firstborn, successor, effect, by-blow, spat, relation, bastard, brute, animate being, animal, relative, male offspring, result, whoreson, event, upshot, female offspring, young mammal, kid



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com