Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Puissant   Listen
Puissant

adjective
1.
Powerful.






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





"Puissant" Quotes from Famous Books



... heard of a dead snake placed upon his (father's) shoulders, the son of the Rishi, his eyes reddened with anger, blazed up with rage. And possessed by anger, the puissant Rishi then cursed the king, touching ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... soon eased of his fears, for the channel growing shallower every step I made, I came in a short time within hearing, and, holding up the end of the cable by which the fleet was fastened, I cried in a loud voice, "Long live the most puissant Emperor of Lilliput!" This great prince received me at my landing with all possible encomiums, and created me a nardac upon the spot, which is the highest title of honor ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... priuileges, such as in his discretion he might demand, very many gentlemen of good estimation drew vnto him, to associate him in so commendable an enterprise, so that the preparation was expected to grow vnto a puissant fleet, able to encounter a kings power by sea: neuerthelesse, amongst a multitude of voluntary men, their dispositions were diuers, which bred a iarre, and made a diuision in the end, to the confusion of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... following story, "as sharp as any swords." "Pardon me, good signor Don Quixote," says the duenna Donna Rodriguez to that unrivalled knight, "but as often as I call to mind my unhappy spouse, my eyes are brim-full. With what stateliness did he use to carry my lady behind him on a puissant mule, for in those days coaches and side-saddles were not in fashion, and the ladies rode behind their squires. On a certain day, at the entrance into St. James's Street in Madrid, which is very narrow, a judge of one of ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... His puissant sword unto his side, Near his undaunted heart, was ty'd; With basket-hilt, that wou'd hold broth, And serve for fight and dinner both. In it he melted lead for bullets, 355 To shoot at foes, and sometimes pullets, To whom ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... so stringent a ruling, (if, indeed, it does exist,) and he did not see the propriety of advertising it for the benefit of those whose character would belie the suspicion of an intention to defraud the revenue. It may be that "Noteriety Hayne," by thus flaunting in our faces his puissant commission, means to enhance his consequence as a prospective candidate far the Legislature, or that he thereby seeks to ingratiate himself with the colored people who relish (as he may suppose) the persecution and humiliation to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... in shining armour, low bending made obeisance to the puissant and high and mighty chief of all Erin and did him to wit of that which had befallen, how that the grave elders of the most obedient city, second of the realm, had met them in the tholsel, and there, after due prayers ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... 216: "When the king saw that they were puissant enough for to wield armour at their ease, he gave them license for to do cry a Justing and Tournament. The which OLIVER and ARTHUR made for to be cried, that three aventurous knights should just against all comers, the which should find them there the first day of the lusty month ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... out to meet the invader, but he, himself, had remained under cover in Memphis because he said the stars were unpropitious. And this was the son of Rameses II, than whom, if the historians and the singer Pentaur say true, there was never a more puissant monarch! But when the marauder was overthrown and routed, and his generals turned toward Memphis with their captives in chains, Meneptah hastened to meet them, decked his chariot with war trophies and entered his capital ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... matter went wrong * Till my heart was nigh-broken, my nature unmanned: He bought me a handmaid, a sweeting who shamed * A wand of the willow by Zephyr befanned: I lavisht upon her mine heritage, * And spent like a nobleman puissant and grand: Then to sell her compelled, my sorrow increased; * The parting was sore but I mote not gainstand: Now as soon as the crier had called her, there bid * A wicked old fellow, a fiery brand: So I raged with a rage that I could not restrain, * And snatched ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... them tremble with fear. "We come," the herald proclaimed, "on the part of Hilaro Frosticos, Don Quixote, Lord Whittington, and the thrice-renowned Baron Munchausen, to claim friendship from the governor of this puissant castle, and to seek Wauwau." "The most noble the governor," replied the officer, "is at all times happy to entertain such travellers as pass through these immense deserts, and will esteem it an honour that the great Hilaro Frosticos, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... expand. Milan engulfs the lesser towns of Lombardy. Verona absorbs Padua and Treviso. Venice extends dominion over the Friuli and the Veronese conquests. Strife and covetousness reign from the Alps to the Ionian Sea. But it is a strife of living energies, the covetousness of impassioned and puissant units. Italy as a whole is almost invisible to the student by reason of the many-sided, combative, self-centered crowd of numberless Italian communities. Proximity foments hatred and stimulates hostility. Fiesole looks down and threatens Florence. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... embellish the land with immortal beauty, the name of Republic will be exalted, until every neighbor, yielding to irresistible attraction, will seek a new life in becoming a part of the great whole; and the national example will be more puissant than army or navy for the conquest of ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... thinking she of mightiest king was born, Who ruled in the East, nor of her heritage, Forced by too puissant love, had thought no scorn To be the consort of a poor foot-page." His story done, to them in proof was borne The gem, which, in reward for harborage, To her extended in that kind abode, Angelica, at parting, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... mandat de la mediation dans l'interet du Danemark et de l'Europe, ajoute aux temoignages inappreciables de sincere amitie qu'elle n'a cesse de m'accorder durant la longue et penible epreuve que le Danemark vient de nouveau de traverser, mais qui parait, a l'aide du Tout-Puissant, devoir maintenant faire place a un meilleur avenir, offrant, sous les auspices de votre Majeste, de nouvelles garanties pour l'independance de mon antique Couronne et pour le maintien de l'integrite de ma Monarchie, a la defense desquelles je me ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... down with honors, and every chief in the tribe was anxious to have him select one of his daughters for a wife. He accommodated six of them, but prudential reasons interposed between him and the seventh. From this time forth he was an honored and puissant warrior, chief, and ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... me where to stand and I will move the world." Let me advise you to stand where you are. That's the place. Act well your part, and you shall have accomplished all that is expected of you. My friends, a country like ours is not governed by law, or courts of justice, or judges, however wise or puissant. It is governed by public sentiment. Once poison it, and courts are impotent and judges powerless. Therefore we are responsible, each and all of us, according to our talents and influence, for the public sentiment of the day. If it is ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... upheld them. But for himself he never could have recourse to such subterfuges. He would rather die than live by illusion. Was not Art also an illusion? No. It must not be. Truth! Truth! Byes wide open, let him draw in through every pore the all-puissant breath of life, see things as they are, squarely face ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... metal—conquered by the soldier first, by the artist afterwards—has allowed to be imprinted on its front its own defeat and our glory. Napoleon might sleep in peace under this audacious trophy. But, would his ashes find a shelter sufficiently vast beneath this pedestal? And his puissant statue dominating Paris, beams with sufficient grandeur on this place: whereas the wheels of carriages and the feet of passengers would profane the funereal sanctity of the spot in trampling on the soil so ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")

... Forseeing or presaging, from the depth Of knowledge past or present, could have feared How such united force of gods, how such As stood like these, could ever know repulse? For who can yet believe, though after loss, That all these puissant legions, whose exile Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to re-ascend, Self-raised, and repossess their native seat? For me, be witness all the host of Heaven, If counsels different, or danger shunned ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... remembrance of these valiant dead, And with your puissant arm renew their feats: You are their heir; you sit upon their throne; The blood and courage, that renowned them, Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege Is in the very May-morn of his youth, Ripe for exploits ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare

... romance never achieved an adventure so stupendous as that which Miguel de Cervantes undertook and accomplished. With his pen, keener than the lance of Esplandian or Felixmarte, he slew the whole herd of puissant cavaliers, of very valiant and accomplished lovers. Before him went down the Florisandros and Florisels, the Lisuartes and Lepolemos, the Primaleons and the Polindos, and the whole brood of the invincible. Scarcely ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... dut palir, et tes juges sinistres, Et notre affreux senat, et ses affreux ministres, Quand, a leur tribunal, sans crainte et sans appui, Ta douceur, ton langage et simple et magnanime Leur apprit qu'en effet, tout puissant qu'est le crime, Qui renonce a la vie est ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... clergyman entered, followed by the witnesses. All the actors in this sad scene were grave and sad; M. de Lucenay himself had forgotten his habitual frivolity. The contract of marriage between the most illustrious and very puissant prince, His Serene Highness, Gustavus Rudolph V., reigning Grand Duke of Gerolstein, and Sarah Seyton of Halsbury, Countess M'Gregor, had been prepared by the care of Baron de Graun: it was read by him, and signed by the bride ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... In her deep distress she looked round for some powerful noble who had the means of rousing the country to the assistance of her husband. No one appeared more competent for the purpose than Don Juan de Guzman, the duke of Medina Sidonia. He was one of the most wealthy and puissant grandees of Spain; his possessions extended over some of the most fertile parts of Andalusia, embracing towns and seaports and numerous villages. Here he reigned in feudal state like a petty sovereign, and could at any time bring into ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... mighty and shall ende it with the helpe of hym, procedyng by the de Dieu tout puissant et lacheuerons a laide diceluy, procedant ...
— An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly • Anonymous

... does not appear to have been a puissant spirit in the scheme; indeed, all design and influence therein was absorbed by Mrs. Surratt and Booth. The latter was the head and heart of the plot; Mrs. Surratt was his anchor, and the rest of the boys were disciples to Iscariot and Jezebel. ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various

... boot," said the Squire,—"Come then, if you wish to be well-mounted, and would really look like a "baron bold," seat yourself fearlessly on either, and bear yourself through the streets of London with the dignity 196 befitting a true, magnanimous and puissant knight of Munster!"—This address had the desired effect,—it implied a doubt of the Baronet's courage, and he seated himself on the "gallant steed" immediately.—Tom and Bob at same time betook themselves, the former to the other "high ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rousting herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her endazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam.—MILTON ON THE ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... demands our close attention— The Maximus Apollo of strict non-intervention— With pitiless severity, though decorous and calm his tone, Thus spake the "old man eloquent," the puissant ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... turned from poetry to philosophy on meeting, in his twentieth year, with Socrates. After travelling abroad in search of knowledge, he returned to Athens and founded his world-renowned Academy there in 387 B.C. With vast learning and puissant method, he created an influence which is not yet extinct Plato was the ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... below the central figure is a coronal of the loveliest little cherub heads. Unfortunately, no photograph is to be had of this triptych, and it is hung in a very obscure place. These two works of art, each a gem in its way, are all that remains of the once puissant and magnificent Abbey of St. Claude. Having completed a leisurely inspection, I quietly took a chair behind my companions, for fear of disturbing their devotions. I found, however, that these were over long ago, and that, though in a devout position, they were discussing fashion and ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... the puissant Oliver walked swiftly, yet with as little noise as possible, towards the wynd in which the smith, as our readers are aware, had his habitation. But his evil fortune had not ceased to pursue him. As he turned into the High, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... quickly. Logotheti thought of beautiful beings of old, disguised as yielding, mortal women, who had visited the men they loved on earth and had by and by revealed themselves as true and puissant goddesses, moving in a sphere of rosy light, and speaking only ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... the formal inauguration of his regime was staged for the 23rd of October. It was to be an impressive ceremony, a pageant at which all eyes should be turned upon him, the great noble who embodied the authority of a puissant monarch. For this ceremony the governor summoned an assembly that was designed to represent ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby

... contemporaries—those of Dryden, for instance, who used to hide from his duns in Purcell's private room in the clock-tower of St. James's Palace. I picture him as a sturdy, beef-eating Englishman, a puissant, masterful, as well as lovable personality, a born king of men, ambitious of greatness, determined, as Tudway says, to exceed every one of his time, less majestic than Handel, perhaps, but full of vigour and unshakable faith in his genius. His ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... the puissant lord, Sir Mighell, Earl of Suffolk. He was not long suffered to enjoy his home; indeed, so ardent a soul as his would have eaten its way through his castle walls, as a chrysalis through its silken tomb, if he had been long inactive. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various

... seul, vivant en France de vostre age, Sans chanter vostre nom, si criant et si puissant? Diray-je point l'honneur de vostre beau croissant? Feray-je point pour vous ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... Red sea: and he is recorded as the first person who constructed vessels fit for distant navigation. With these, by means of his generals, he subdued all the sea-coast of Arabia, and all the coast upon the ocean as far as India. In the mean time he marched in person, with a puissant army, by land, and conquered the whole continent of Asia. He not only overran the countries, which Alexander afterwards invaded; but crossed both the Indus and the Ganges; and from thence penetrated to the eastern ocean. He then turned to the north, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... seigneur, laissez, laissez! Ma foi, je ne veux point que vous abaissez votre grandeur en baisant la main d'une indigne serviteur. Excusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon tres-puissant seigneur. ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]

... can scarce forbear being angry with you for advising me to break the engagement I have made with the most puissant and most renowned monarch in the world. I do not speak here of an engagement between a slave and her master; it would be easy to return the ten thousand pieces of gold that I cost him; but I speak now of a contract between a wife and a husband, and a wife who has not ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... shall hail you as king of these free lances who will undertake anything; whose perspicacity discovers the intentions of Austria, England, or Russia before either Russia, Austria or England have formed any. Yes, we will invest you with the sovereignty of those puissant intellects which give to the world its Mirabeaus, Talleyrands, Pitts, and Metternichs—all the clever Crispins who treat the destinies of a kingdom as gamblers' stakes, just as ordinary men play dominoes for kirschenwasser. We have given you out to be the most undaunted ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... draw, and that remove. Thou as a lion roar'st, O Sun, Upon thy satellites' vex-ed heels; Before thy terrible hunt thy planets run; Each in his frighted orbit wheels, Each flies through inassuageable chase, Since the hunt o' the world begun, The puissant approaches of thy face, And yet thy radiant leash he feels. Since the hunt o' the world begun, Lashed with terror, leashed with longing, The mighty course is ever run; Pricked with terror, leashed with longing, Thy rein they love, and thy rebuke ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... DEMETRIUS. Most puissant king! Most worthy and most potent Bishops and palatines, and my good lords, The deputies of the august republic! It gives me pause and wonder to behold Myself, Czar Ivan's son, now stand before The Polish people in their Diet here. Both realms were sundered ...
— Demetrius - A Play • Frederich Schiller

... son haut-de-chausses; on faisoit une confession générale et on fesoit dire trois messes, pendant les quelles on mettoit le cheveu autour de son col; on allumait un cièrge béni au dernier Evangile en on prononcait cette formule. 'O Vierge! je te conjure par la vertu du Dieu tout-puissant, par des neuf chœurs des anges, par la vertu gosdrienne, amène moi icelle fille, en chair et en os, afin que je ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... times past more puissant and formidable, is related by the Prince of authors, the deified Julius [Caesar]; and hence it is probable that they too have passed into Germany. For what a small obstacle must be a river, to restrain any nation, as each grew more potent, from seizing or changing habitations; ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus

... he was in the habit of moving about once a year. What could he do now? He had yielded so long to his wife, who had grown bolder at each concession, that opposition was now hopeless. Had she stood alone, there might have been some chance for him; but backed up, as she was, by her puissant mother, victory was sure to perch on her banner; and well ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur

... refuge of living things, Most noble eminence, I worship thee; Thee I salute, who am a monarch's child, The daughter and the consort of a prince, The high-born Damayanti, unto whom Bhima, Vidarbha's chief—that puissant lord— Was sire, renowned o'er earth. Protector he Of the four castes, performer of the rites Called Rajasuya and the Aswamedha— A bounteous giver, first of rulers, known For his large shining eyes; holy and just, Fast to his word, unenvious, sweet of speech, Gentle ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... this game, I find upon record, that it was invented 614 years before the Nativity of Christ, so that it is now 2,252 years since it hath been practiced, and it is thought that Xerxes (a puissant King) was the deviser thereof, though some be of opinion that it was made by excellent learned men, as well appeareth by the wonderful invention of ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird

... Dugald Dalgetty, of Drumthwacket, to the Most Noble and Puissant Prince James, Earl of Montrose, commanding the musters of the King in Scotland. ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang

... was recherche and brilliant, for Spa was so before the French revolution, the gaming tables were a source of immense profit; and to whom do you imagine that a great portion of the profits belonged?—to no less a person than the most sacred and puissant prince, the Bishop of Liege, who derived a great revenue from them. But it would appear as if there was a judgment upon this anomalous secular property, for these gaming-tables were the cause of the Prince Bishop losing all, and being driven out of his territories. There ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... 'sdeath, eke, erst, deft, romaunt, pleasaunce, certes, whilom, distraught, quotha, good lack, well-a-day, vermeil, perchance, hight, wight, lea, wist, list, sheen, anon, gliff, astrolt, what boots it? malfortunes, ween, God wot, I trow, emprise, duress, donjon, puissant, sooth, rock, bruit, ken, eld, o'ersprent, etc. Of course, such a word as "lady" is made to do good service, and "ye" asserts its well-known superiority to "you." All this the author evidently considers highly meritorious, although ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... of Melville, to whom he had been greatly attracted, who encouraged him to enter the ministry, and under whom he was trained for it. Bruce commanded respect from all classes and on all hands; 'the godlie for his puissant and maist moving doctrine lovit him; the wardlings for his parentage and place reverenced him; and the enemies for bath stude in awe of him.' Bruce was a special friend of Chancellor Maitland, through whom he was received with favour at the Court; and he brought Maitland and Melville together ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... lover, and to Heaven she bore Oceanus, and the Titans, Coeeus and Crius, Hyperion and Iapetus, Thea and Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, "and youngest after these was born Cronus of crooked counsel, the most dreadful of her children, who ever detested his puissant sire," Heaven. There were other sons of Earth and Heaven peculiarly hateful to their father,(3) and these Uranus used to hide from the light in a hollow of Gaea. Both they and Gaea resented this treatment, and the Titans, like "the children of ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... is true that when Burns took this world at its apparent worst, when Scotch drink meant bestial drunkenness, when Scotch manners meant shameless indecency, when Scotch religion meant blasphemous defiance, he created The Jolly Beggars, which the same critic found a "splendid and puissant production." We must conclude, then, that sufficient genius can sublimate even a hideously sordid world into a superb work of art, which ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... join heart and song with the music of the shepherd's horn, and the thunder of a thousand torrents, as they rush headlong down amid crags and pine-forests from the icy summits. You shall enter, with pilgrim feet, the gates of proud capitals, where puissant kings once reigned, but have passed away, and have left no memorial on earth, save a handful of dust in a stone-coffin, or a half-legible name on some mouldering arch. The solemn and stirring voice ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... This Puissant Prince was married to a lovely Princess whose name was Fair Freedom. She had brought him a large fortune, and had borne him an immense number of children, and had set them to spinning, and farming, and engineering, and soldiering, and sailoring, and doctoring, and lawyering, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... "Garcilasso de la Vega parle de cette nation comme d'un peuple puissant, et il n'y a pas six ans qu'on y comptoit quatre mille guerriers. Aujourd'hui les Natchez ne pourroient pas mettre sur pied deux mille combattans ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... were not very inviting, nor, as grounds, very extensive; though, no doubt, the entire domain was such as suited the importance of so puissant a nobleman as Earl de Courcy. What, indeed, should have been the park was divided out into various large paddocks. The surface was flat and unbroken; and though there were magnificent elm-trees standing in straight lines, like hedgerows, the timber had ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... langage au Monarque: "Je vais celebrer un autre sacrifice, afin que le ciel accorde a tes voeux les enfants que tu souhaites." Cela dit, cherchant le bonheur du roi et pour l'accomplissement de son desir, le fils puissant de Vibhandaka se mit a ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... tradesman, in this distant, obscure country town: but that humble domicile in which I shelter my wife and children is the CASTELLUM of a BRITON; and that scanty, hard-earned income which supports them is as truly my property, as the most magnificent fortune, of the most PUISSANT MEMBER ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... advantage of his opportunity to assure men expressly or by implication that he is their true king, and that the sacred bard is a mightier man than his hero. Voltaire knew better. Tho himself perhaps the most puissant man of letters that ever lived, he rated literature as it ought to be rated below action, not because written speech is less of a force, but because the speculation and criticism of the literature that ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... occasion Orlando encountered a puissant Saracen warrior, and took from him, as the prize of victory, the sword Durindana. This famous weapon had once belonged to the illustrious prince Hector of Troy. It was of the finest workmanship, and of such strength and temper that no armor in the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... the reign of the right high and puissant King Henry the Eighth, namely, in 1529, on the 21st of April, and on one of the loveliest evenings that ever fell on the loveliest district in England, a fair youth, having somewhat the appearance of a page, was leaning over ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... pierce his flesh or skin Of him who is well lin'd with Rug within; Rug is a lord beyond the Rules of Law, It conquers hunger in a greedy maw, And, in a word, of all drinks potable, Rug is most puissant, potent, notable. Rug was the Capital Commander there, And his ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... replied:—"Know, most puissant and valiant Knight, that we are the unfortunate daughters of the King of Georgia. Our lives since our births have been unhappy. First, we were carried off by a monstrous giant, and, being turned into swans for seven long years, lost sight of the outer world, neither knowing what ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... of men, "A foeman's gifts are no gifts, but a curse." Wherefore henceforward shall I know that God Is great; and strive to honour Atreus' sons. Princes they are, and should be obeyed. How else? Do not all terrible and most puissant things Yet bow to loftier majesties? The Winter, Who walks forth scattering snows, gives place anon To fruitage-laden Summer; and the orb Of weary Night doth in her turn stand by, And let shine out, with her white steeds, ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.

... Heaven and Earth, of England, France, and Ireland Queen, and of the Christian faith, against all the idolaters and false professors of the name of Christ dwelling among the Christians, most invincible and puissant Defender; to the most valiant and invincible Prince, Sultan Murad Can, the most mighty ruler of the Kingdom of Mussulman and of the East Empire, the only and highest monarch above all, health and ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt

... as the puissant and glorious founder, Pope as the splendid high priest, of our age of prose and reason, of our excellent and indispensable eighteenth century. For the purposes of their mission and destiny their poetry, like their prose, is admirable. ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... dans un silence menacant; il fixoit sur la terre son visage feroce, et ne donnoit point d'essor a sa profonde indignation. De toutes partes cependant les soldats et les peuples accouroient; ils vouloient voir cet homme, jadis si puissant ... et la joie universelle eclatoit de toutes partes.... Eccelino etoit d'une petite taille; mais tout l'aspect de sa personne, tous ses mouvemens, indiquoient un soldat. Son langage etoit amer, son deportement superbe, et par son seul regard, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... Childe Harold lie on the surface; but it is difficult for the modern reader, familiar with the sight, if not the texture, of "the purple patches," and unattracted, perhaps demagnetized, by a personality once fascinating and always "puissant," to appreciate the actual worth and magnitude of the poem. We are "o'er informed;" and as with Nature, so with Art, the eye must be couched, and the film of association removed, before we can see clearly. But there is one characteristic feature of Childe Harold which association ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... composed of the born seers—men who see for themselves and who originate. These are poets, philosophers, discoverers. The Secondary Class is composed of men less puissant in faculty, but genuine also in their way, who travel along the paths opened by the great originaters, and also point out many a side-path and shorter cut. They reproduce and vary the materials furnished by others, but they ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... O puissant Orosmades, continu'd he, you have made me, 'tis true, an Instrument of Comfort to this poor Man; but what Friend will you raise for me, to alleviate my Sorrows? Having utter'd this short Expostulation, he gave the distrest Fisherman one full Moiety of all the Money he brought with him out of Arabia. ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire

... your grace to be advertised The Duke of York is newly come from Ireland, And with a puissant and a mighty power Of gallowglasses and stout kerns Is marching hitherward in proud array, And still proclaimeth, as he comes along, His arms are only to remove from thee The Duke of Somerset, whom ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... writes Cecil to Sir Thomas Smith, ambassador at Paris, Feb. 27, 1562/3, "commission passeth hence to the comte of Oldenburg to levy eight thousand footemen and four thousand horse, who will, I truste, passe into France with spede and corradg. He is a notable, grave, and puissant captayn, and fully bent to hazard his life in the cause of religion." Th. Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, i. 125. But Elizabeth's troops, like Elizabeth's money, came too late. Of the latter, Admiral Coligny plainly told Smith a few weeks later: "If we could have had the money at Newhaven ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... d'entre eux dorment dans leurs vtements ensanglants. Agenouillons-nous dans le cimetire, au bords des tombes fleuries de ceux qui sont revenus dans le doux pays, et l, entendons le souffle imperceptible et puissant qu'ils mlent, la nuit, au murmure du vent et au bruissement des feuilles qui tombent. Efforons-nous de comprendre leur parole sainte. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... having a mighty great store of money and saith not thus save because he is a pinchpenny, and grudgeth the spending of a farthing; wherefore he is loath to marry me, lest he be put to somewhat of expense in my marriage, albeit Almighty Allah hath been bounteous to him and he is a man puissant in his time and lacking naught of worldly weal." The youth asked, "Who is thy father and what is his condition?" and she answered, "He is the Chief Kazi of the well- known Supreme Court, under whose hands are all the Kazis who administer ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... II., are masterpieces in their way. The mask of Rameses II. shows no sign of paint, except a black line which accentuates the form of the eye. The face is doubtless modelled in the likeness of the Pharaoh Herhor, who restored the funerary outfit of his puissant ancestor, and it will almost bear comparison with the best works of contemporary sculpture (fig. 262). Two mummy-cases found in the same place—namely, those of Queen Ahmesnefertari and her daughter, Aahhotep II.—are of gigantic size, and measure more than ten and a half feet in height (fig. ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... council, but as its president, to be named and addressed individually and in contradistinction to the other (p. 260) members. "The petition of my lord Thomas of Lancaster, made to the very honourable and puissant lord the Prince, and the other very honourable and wise lords of the council of our sovereign lord the King. First, may it please my said lord the Prince, and the other lords of the council," &c.—That up to this time no ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... un massacre horrible Survint soudainement. Les Huguenots terribles Et Montgommerie puissant, Par cruels enterprises Renverserent les Eglises De Rouen pour certain. Sans aucune relache Pillent et volent la chasse Du corps ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... his whiskers. They are mighty talismans. Chopped up in food, they act as a slow poison, which no doctor can detect, no antidote guard against. They are also a sovereign remedy against magic or the evil eye. And administered to women, they make an irresistible philtre, a puissant love-potion. They secure you the heart of whoever ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... alone should be addressed as the Most Worshipful Being. But Masonry requires the use of such language as follows: "The Most Worshipful Grand Master," and "The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge." God alone is Almighty, but Masons have their "Thrice Illustrious and Grand Puissant," and their "Thrice Potent Grand Master." God alone is perfect, but Masons have a "Grand Lodge of Perfection" and a "Grand Elect Perfect and Sublime Mason." (Monitor, pp. 187, 219; Monitor of Free and ...
— Secret Societies • David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher

... resembles any animate object in nature, has something of the appearance of a terrible couchant lion, whose stupendous head menaces Spain. Had I been dreaming, I should almost have concluded it to be the genius of Africa, in the shape of its most puissant monster, who had bounded over the sea from the clime of sand and sun, bent on the destruction of the rival continent, more especially as the hue of its stony sides, its crest and chine, is tawny even as ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... Ralph, puissant and valorous upon his own hearthstone, felt his courage fast oozing out at elbows when he saw the cold moonlight streaming through the branches above him, and their crawling shadows on the grotesque rocks ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... Glow-worm, "hold thy hand, Thou puissant King of Fairy-land! Thy mighty strokes who may withstand? Hold, or of life despair I!" Together then herself doth roll, And tumbling down into a hole, She seemed as black as any coal; ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... dazzled me, her charm enmeshed me, and she had grown by now in worldly wisdom and mental attainments. Yet I set a mask upon my passion, and walked very circumspectly, for all that by nature I was as reckless and profligate as all the world could ever call me. She was the wife of the puissant Secretary of State, the mistress of the King. Who was I to dispute their ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... my Lord Chief Justice, and most puissant Cacique," said the captain; "the hour has not yet come to empanel a jury of fat yeomen, and no man must interfere ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... Charles recommends himself to the most puissant Duke Frederick, and bearing in mind the great antiquity and high nobility of the illustrious House of Hapsburg, begs to express his desire to bind the said noble House to Burgundy by ties ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... said later, much to do with the unhappy taking-off of that ostentatious and haughty lady. It had Mlle. Affettuoso, songstress, with, it is true, an occasional break in her trill; and, last, but not least, that general friend of mankind, more puissant, powerful and necessary than all the nightingales, butterflies, or men of letters—who, nevertheless, are well enough in their places!—Tortier, the only Tortier, who carried the art de cuisine to ravishing perfection, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... he, "in Pomerania. We came at night, just as now, upon this castle of its most noble and puissant lord. It was Palm Sunday, April the third, Old Style. I mind, because it was my birthday; the country all about was bursting out in a most rare green; the gardens and fields breathed sappy odours, and the birds were throng at the Digging of their homes ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... ame s'envola vers d'autres regions Au jour-d'hui que mon bras peut manier une arme, Que ma haine a grandi comme a grandi l'enfant; Lors qu'un rugissement au Douar met l'alarme, Heureux je pars alors sous le soleil brulant! Est-il parles houris, de notre saint Prophete, Par Allah tout puissant maitre de l'univers; Est-il plus nobles jeux, est-il plus belle fete, Qu'une chasse aux Lions, dans ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... place a king of their own choosing there, they would suffer your Order, any more than my poor marquisate, to retain the independence which we now hold. No, by Our Lady! In such case, the proud Knights of Saint John must again spread plasters and dress plague sores in the hospitals; and you, most puissant and venerable Knights of the Temple, must return to your condition of simple men-at-arms, sleep three on a pallet, and mount two upon one horse, as your present seal still expresses to have been your ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... Thebes divine, Ye gods of Thebes whence sprang my line, Look, puissant lords of Thebes, on me; The last of all your royal house ye see. Martyred by men of sin, undone. Such meed my piety ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... old Shakespearian story over again, eh, Finn? Desdemona loves you for the dangers you have passed—is that it? Well, your friendship will have to be strictly platonic, my son, for this particular Desdemona is pledged to no less puissant a prince than Champion Windle Hercules, the greatest bloodhound sire of this age. 'A marriage has been arranged,' as the papers say, Finn; and I hope it won't put your long muzzle too badly out ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... strike a blow for mere chivalry; and, were they so inclined, the rogues are too much disposed to logic, to mistake, like your black, the 'Dolphin' for a church. Still, if they see reason, in their puissant judgments, to engage, mark me, the two guns they command will do better service than all the rest of the battery. But, should they think otherwise, it would occasion no surprise were I to receive a proposition to spare the powder for some more profitable adventure. Honour, forsooth! the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... the fruit of His death and passion to be daily renewed and applied." In this traditional view there is nothing unedifying, nothing injurious to the Christian life. But to Knox the wafer is an idol, a god "of water and meal," "but a feeble and miserable god," that can be destroyed "by a bold and puissant mouse." "Rats and mice will desire no better dinner than white round gods ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... are unwontedly realistic, and emphasize their distinctiveness in every vein and wrinkle. They appear to be themselves endowed with each of those various qualities which caused their possessor to be regarded as one of the most puissant figures in the century's literature. The hand is not one, to use Charles Lamb's expressive phrase, to be looked at standing on one leg. It deserves ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... marshal of the field: Weak was his mother when she gave him day; And he at first a sick and weakly child, As e'er with tears welcomed the sunny ray; Yet when more years afford more growth and might, A champion stout he was, and puissant knight, As ever came in field, or shone ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... dwarf broke again into an unearthly cachinnation, that frightened the landlord nearly into fits, and seriously discomposed the nervous system even of Sir Norman himself. Then, grinning like a baboon, and still transfixing our puissant young knight with the same tiger-like and unpleasant glare, he nodded a farewell; and in this fashion, grinning, and nodding, and backing, he got to the door, and concluding the interesting performance ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... travelers came into a region which had at one time been more densely populated, they began to find here and there mournful relics of the life that once had been—traces of man, dim and all but obliterated, but now and then puissant in their revocation ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... endlessly much in the sea, in the air, and on the earth—wonders, which science will bring forth!—wonders, greater than the poet's philosophy can create! A bard will come, who, with a child's mind, like a new Aladdin, will enter into the cavern of science,—with a child's mind, we say, or else the puissant spirits of natural strength would seize him, and make him their servant; whilst he, with the lamp of poetry, which is, and always will be, the human heart, stands as a ruler, and brings forth wonderful fruits from the gloomy passages, and has strength to build ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen

... fury redoubled; threatening them collectively, addressing each man by some vile nickname, pacing in front of them with a bold swing of the powerful hips, the woman dominated them, intoxicated them with her puissant influence. ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... victim would naturally have been his breakfast; but singularly enough, he fell upon this with so feeble an energy that he was himself beaten—to the grieved astonishment of the worthy rotisseur, who had to record his hitherto puissant patron's maiden defeat. Three or four cups of cafe noir were the only captives that graced Mr. Jarvis' ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... such a spectacle would have called forth all the latent passion of Alroy; but time and suffering, and sharp experience, had already somewhat curbed the fiery spirit of the Hebrew Prince. He gazed upon Jerusalem, he beheld the City of David garrisoned by the puissant warriors of Christendom, and threatened by the innumerable armies of the Crescent. The two great divisions of the world seemed contending for a prize, which he, a lonely wanderer, had ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... Nature from religion, and is severe upon unbelievers. The book is well written, and in parts clever, but only touches the surface and misses much. His position is thus laid down: 'Le vrai sentiment de la Nature, le seul poetique, le seul fecond et puissant, le seul innocent de tout danger, est celui qui ne separe jamais l'idee des choses visibles de la pensee de Dieu.' He accounts for the lack of any important expressions of feeling for Nature in French classics with: 'Le ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... still eloquently discoursing on this interesting topic, when a distant door opened, and a gold stick, or some other sort of stick, announced the right reverend father in God, his grace the most eminent and most serene prelate, the very puissant and thrice gracious and glorified saint, the Primate of ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... disposed to treat the subject very seriously; for after stating that Dr. Morton had preached before the king on the duty of obedience, "inasmuch as it was rendered to the vicegerent of heaven, the high and mighty and puissant James, Defender of the Faith, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various

... was soon eased of his fears; for the channel growing shallower every step I made, I came in a short time within hearing, and holding up the end of the cable, by which the fleet was fastened, I cried in a loud voice, "Long live the most puissant king of Lilliput!" This great prince received me at my landing with all possible encomiums, and created me a nardac upon the spot, which is the highest title ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... Great. Who, from a Scythian Shephearde by his rare and woonderfull Conquests, became a most puissant and mightye Monarque. And (for his tyranny, and terrour in Warre) was tearmed, The Scourge of God. Deuided into two Tragicall Discourses, as they were sundrie times shewed vpon Stages in the Citie of London. By the right honorable the Lord Admyrall, his seruauntes. Now ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe

... Aelian of old Italy? There were in former ages 1166 cities: Blondus and Machiavel, both grant them now nothing near so populous, and full of good towns as in the time of Augustus (for now Leander Albertus can find but 300 at most), and if we may give credit to [554]Livy, not then so strong and puissant as of old: "They mustered 70 Legions in former times, which now the known world will scarce yield." Alexander built 70 cities in a short space for his part, our sultans and Turks demolish twice as many, and leave all desolate. Many will not believe but that our island of Great Britain ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... doth rise, I fetch my round Over the mount, and all this hallow'd ground, And early ere the odorous breath of morn Awakes the slumbring leaves, or tasseld horn Shakes the high thicket, haste I all about, Number my ranks, and visit every sprout With puissant words, and murmurs made to bless, 60 But els in deep of night when drowsines Hath lockt up mortal sense, then listen I To the celestial Sirens harmony, That sit upon the nine enfolded Sphears, And sing to those that hold the vital shears, And turn the Adamantine ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... borne the stamp, "Family physician of the Old School," even had he been found in the ranks of the Matabele army. Big, shaggy, bearded, he was of the ancient and puissant type that, under the tidal wave of "specialism" is fast being swept towards the shores where live the last survivors of the Great Auk, the Dinosaur, and ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... puissant and mighty Emperor Theodosius was, in the Primitive Church which was most holy and godly, excommunicated ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... puissant brood Of golden-girt Alcmena, for great merite, 380 Out of the dust to which the Oetaean wood Had him consum'd, and spent his vitall spirite, To highest heaven, where now he doth inherite All happinesse in Hebes silver bowre, Chosen to be her ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... reached me, O King of the Age, that in Bassorah-city[FN9] reigned a puissant Sultan, who was opulent exceedingly and who owned all the goods of life; but he lacked a child which might inherit his wealth and dominion. So, being sorely sorrowful on this account, he arose and fell ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... popular, derived from the "Liber Consolationis" of Albertano of Brescia, written ab. 1246, ed. Thor Sundby, Chaucer Society, 1873. It was translated into French (several times), Italian, German, Dutch. French text in MS. Reg. 19, C vii. in the British Museum: "Uns jouvenceauls appele Melibee, puissant et riches ot une femme nomme Prudence, et de celle femme ot une fille. Advint un jour...." "A young man," says Chaucer, whose tale is also in prose, "called Melibeus, mighty and riche, bigat up-on his wyf that called was Prudence, a doghter which ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... And can nothing, no one, escape the blighting touch of that canker stationed at the very foundations of being? Certainly it would seem not—Richard reasoned—listening to the words of the radiant woman beside him, ordained, in right of her talent and puissant grace, to be a queen and idol of men. For sadder than the thin sunshine, bare trees and complaint of the hungry flock, was that assured declaration that loveless and unlovely marriages—of which her own was one—exist by the thousand, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... "Right puissant and potential sir, we do beseech thee check thy ferocity, quell now thy so great anger and swear not to give our flesh for fowls to tear, so shalt thou come down to earth and stand again upon thine own two legs. And thou, most reverend friar, invoke now thy bloody-minded comrade that he swear ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... is why I say we should not deliberately create trouble for the Republic at this time to add to the worries of the Great President so that he might devote his puissant thoughts and energies to the institution of great reforms. Then our final hope will be satisfied some day. But what a year and what a day we are now living in? The great crisis (Note: The reference is to the Japanese demands) has just passed and we have not yet had time ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... failed to invite him to a brilliant wedding. The Grigsby blood took fire, and a fight was arranged. But when they came to the ring, Lincoln, deeming the Grigsby champion too much overmatched, magnanimously substituted for himself his less puissant stepbrother, John Johnston, who was getting well pounded when Abe, on pretence of foul play, interfered, seized Grigsby by the neck, flung him off and cleared the ring. He then "swung a whiskey bottle over his head, and swore that he was the big buck of the ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... of my speech, He answer'd: "I was new to that estate, When I beheld a puissant one arrive Amongst us, with victorious trophy crown'd. He forth the shade of our first parent drew, Abel his child, and Noah righteous man, Of Moses lawgiver for faith approv'd, Of patriarch Abraham, and David king, Israel with his sire and with his sons, Nor without Rachel whom so hard he won, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... de reduction, par le puissant motif d'interet et d'honneur public auquel chaque membre de la societe ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various



Words linked to "Puissant" :   powerful, archaicism, puissance, archaism



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com