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Swerve   /swərv/   Listen
Swerve

noun
1.
The act of turning aside suddenly.  Synonyms: swerving, veering.
2.
An erratic deflection from an intended course.  Synonym: yaw.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Swerve" Quotes from Famous Books



... said to him, 'In dealing with your subordinates, there is nothing like impartiality; and when wealth comes in your way, there is nothing like moderation. Hold fast these two things, and do not swerve from them. To conceal men's excellence is to obscure the worthy; and to proclaim people's wickedness is the part of a mean man. To speak evil of those whom you have not sought the opportunity to instruct is not ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge

... attempt of hers to move Edith from any resolve that she might make. Already she recognized in that slender young girl the stubborn spirit of her father—a spirit which would meet death and destruction rather than swerve from its set purpose. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... all became aware of a sudden swerve in the course of the submarine. The helmsman had, doubtless, noted the "water-mark," as Tom termed it, and as an automobilist on land might swing at the cross-roads, the steersman was changing ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton

... much for Boris. He did swerve the car, but it struck the wreck. There was a deafening crash, and then they were hurled out onto the turf by the roadside, while the motor roared and flames leaped out over ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine

... began to swerve away from them, closer to the river. Blue pulled ahead a little, swerving also, and as Billy Louise tightened the reins, he slowed and circled them craftily until they huddled on the steep bank, uncertain which ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... scant dreams of the future because she clove tenaciously to the past—to the rare associations and the old affections—to the road and the cedars and the Hall as to the men and women whose blood she bore and whose likeness she carried. She loved one and all with a fidelity that did not swerve. Riding home along the open road that led to the cedars, she marked each friendly object in its turn—on one side the persimmon tree where the fruit ripened—on the other the blackened wreck of the giant ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... enter with God peace and alliance, Promising that they would him honour, fear, and serve: All kind of people were bound in those covenants, That from his law they should never swerve; ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley

... into your power. I, with the sentiments I entertain, can only wish that you served a better cause, at the same time that I would not seek to induce you, as an officer bearing his Majesty's commission, to swerve from ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... sufficient answer to my accusations, though he does not realize it. I, at any rate, have not the face to upbraid a lonely youth, without home or girl friends from one year's end to another, when in that same Reynolds's I see page after page of "cases." If these people swerve, if they break the tables of the law every week, surely George the Fourth may hold up his head. You see, in Geordie-land, in the ports of Tyne and Wear, where George the Fourth was bred, there are many engineers who have been ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... the passing stream—Major Carew! He had evidently been told of the girls' destination, and had come with the express purpose of meeting them coming out. For the moment, however, they were unrecognised, and Claire gave a quick swerve to the right, hurrying out of the patch of light into the dimness beyond. The street was so full that, given a minute's start, it would surely be easy to escape. She slid her hand through Cecil's ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... to their trust, brave after their fashion, temperate, and patient of hardship and privation beyond belief. Their sense of right and wrong is not founded on the Decalogue, as may be well imagined, yet, from such principles as they profess they rarely swerve. Though they will freely risk their lives to steal, they will not contravene the wild rule of the desert. If a wayfarer's camel sinks and dies beneath its burden, the owner draws a circle round the animal in the sand, ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous

... equal before God and the law, each respecting the rights of his fellows. What we have to remember is, that before this truth was advocated by any order, or embodied in any political constitution, it was embedded in the will of God and the constitution of the human soul. Nor will Masonry ever swerve one jot or tittle from its ancient and eloquent demand till all men, everywhere, are free in body, mind, and soul. As it is, Lowell ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... me, nor swerve from the paths of truth. For if thou reply unto my questions with sincerity, I will loosen thy bonds and give thee treasures; but if thou deceive me, thou shalt languish ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... though, that you can swerve me from my purpose. We are best apart. Your life will pass quietly and happily in some grateful retreat, all the happier for this storm that now threatens your peace. You will have nothing to regret. The world will make the most of the nine day's wonder, and then it will be forgotten. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... permit any such performance, but the wall was not impenetrable. Like an arrow from the bow sped the animal, and, seeing the point toward which he was aiming, the Apaches endeavored to close the gap. The equine fugitive did not swerve in the least, and it looked as if he was ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... travelling. I have been quite unsphered since I have been here, in various ways, and have discovered how good every man's business is and how wide his horizon. There is a shabby Americanism which prowls proselyting through Europe, defying its spirit or its beauty or its difference to swerve it from what it calls its patriotism. Because America is contented and tolerably peaceful with a Republic, it prophesies that Europe shall see no happy days until all kings are prostrated; and belches that peculiar ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke

... still headed straight for the hole, the Boy had gathered himself for a clear jump to the right, but the sled's sudden swerve to the left broke his angle sharply. He was flung forward on the new impetus, spun over the smooth surface, swept across the verge and under the cloud, clutching wildly at the ragged edge of ice as ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... stampeded by the vivid lightning and sharp peals of thunder, come wildly charging down the mountain trail, threatening to run quite over me in their mad career. Pulling my six-shooter, I fire a couple of shots in the air to attract their attention, when they rapidly swerve to the left, and go tearing frantically over the rolling hills on their wild flight ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... A sudden swerve to the right brought them into a lighted and populous thoroughfare. Italian restaurants, German delicatessen shops, eating places of a dozen other nationalities lined the pavements on both sides of the street, and, in front of these a high-power ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... sacredly discharged. Since the war, he has faithfully adhered to and followed the fortunes of the Republican party, by the mandate of which he was emancipated; even though in doing so he has suffered all the evils which a hostile opponent can invent to plague and swerve him from what he considers the path of gratitude ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... Salara's far-off bridge descried, Like coursing butterflies, they seem to glide; Then, dwindling farther, in the lengthening course, Mere floating specks supplant both man and horse; Till, having crossed the Columbarium gray, They swerve, and back retrace ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... one of these two pilots who later said, "Were you ever traveling along the highway about 70 miles an hour at night, have the car that you were meeting suddenly swerve over into your lane and then cut back so that you just miss it by inches? You know the sort of sick, empty feeling you get when it's all over? That's just the ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... wear spurs until you are quite sure that you won't spur at the wrong time. Never lose your temper with your horse, and never strike him with the whip when going at a fence; it is almost sure to make him swerve. Pick out the firmest ground; hold your horse together across ploughed land; if you want a pilot, choose not a scarlet and cap, but some well-mounted old farmer, who has not got a horse to sell: if he has, ten to one but he leads you ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... ME! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but YE have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... that marks a self-absorbed man; and as he passed the policeman standing stolidly under the arched door-way of the big court-yard he swerved a little, as if startled out of his thoughts. He realized his swerve almost before it was accomplished, and pulled himself together with ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... upland with its bordering wood and clump of ash-trees against the sky was a pretty sight. Presently there came along a wagon laden with timber; the horses were straining their grand muscles, and the driver having cracked his whip, ran along anxiously to guide the leader's head, fearing a swerve. Rex seemed to be shaken into attention, rose and looked till the last quivering trunk of the timber had disappeared, and then walked once or twice along the room. Mrs. Gascoigne was no longer there, and when he came to sit down again, Anna, seeing a return of speech in ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... brown figures stooping on the tiny beaches, the brown figures of men, women, and children grubbing in the sand in search of turtles' eggs, would rise up, crooked elbow aloft and hand over the eyes, to watch this monthly apparition glide straight on, swerve off—and go by. Their ears caught the panting of that ship; their eyes followed her till she passed between the two capes of the mainland going at full speed as though she hoped to make her way unchecked into the very bosom of ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... times, but the result is invariably the same. How is this? No one can tell. What are the obstacles? It is difficult to say. Perhaps, we meet with a friend who detains us; perhaps, a recollection that our memory has called, induces us to swerve from the path—the blind man that sung under our window may have something to do with it—perhaps, it was merely a ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... dauntless to recklessness. "No, it won't," she flung back. Her shining head was between Johnny and the whirling wheels. He thought a most particularly beautiful little swinging gate in peril and tried to swerve the flying thing; how it happened, neither of the children knew; there was a smash, a crash, and gate and velocipede lay in splinters under a bronze bust. The glass of the show-case was etched ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... horror and a call to Julius, dashed in an instant towards her. The light girlish figure, however, glided safely over the place of danger. Jeffreys had just time to swerve and let her pass, and next moment he was struggling heavily twenty yards beyond in ten feet ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... Legislature would undoubtedly have been reconvened in extra session, and presidential electors chosen favourable to his own party, as Hamilton wanted. But, at the bottom of his nature, there was bed-rock principle from which no pressure could swerve him. He could exclaim with Emerson, "I will say those things which I have meditated for their own sake and not for the first time with a view to that occasion." In these words is the secret of his relation to the Whig ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... coming within the above rules you are at liberty to make at your discretion; but you are in no case to swerve from these rules, or ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... dead. He would marry such couples as might to marriage be inclined. There were peculiar customs in Happy Valley, due to the "rider's" long absences, so that sometimes a baby might without shame be present at the wedding of its own parents. To be sure, Lum's eyes did swerve once when the preacher spoke of marriage—swerved from where the women sat to where sat the men—to young Jake Kilburn, called Devil Jake, a name of which he was rather proud; for Martha's eyes had swerved to him too, and ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... protested, but she was utterly unable to swerve him a hair's breadth from his determination and purpose. So she was obliged to see him start off by himself on his useless and Quixotic errand. She knew that he would return disappointed, saddened, doubly depressed, and ill both in body ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... took the witness in hand, but shrewd and able as they were they utterly failed to make her swerve even a hair's breadth from her evidence. She returned to her place beside Mme. de Rancogne, confident that she had done her duty and uttered not a single syllable ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg

... highway was empty, for to think that any cart or carriage could be passed was absurd. Side by side the huge machines, scarlet, green, alive with shining brass, tore along with the roar of express trains between the ditch and the bank. The slightest swerve at such speed meant death. The chatter of the careless girls dwindled, the faces of the rival drivers grew ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... the teacher, with dignity, "if you suppose that any such threat or consideration will make me swerve from my duty. However, though I did not propose to mention it, I will state that this is the last term I shall teach in this village. I have been engaged at double the ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... maintain that the farther apart the wheels are set the more one drags against the other, not only at the turns, where anyone can see the outer wheel drag on the inner, but at every swerve of the team on the straightaway. All such dragging reduces speed and tires the team with pulling which ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... many angry remonstrances he threatened to disinherit him if he did not renounce all connection with the reformers. But Maximilian, true to his conscience, would not allow the apprehension of the loss of a crown to induce him to swerve from his faith. Fully expecting to be thus cast off and banished from the kingdom, he wrote to the Protestant ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... power, nor can you have any interest about her. She shall then choose—if she will come with me, I will take her, and nothing shall prevent me; and in so doing I do you no injustice, nor do I swerve in ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... infantry in advance of Archidamus, advancing at the double, caught sight of the Arcadian Eparitoi (20) outside the stockade and attacked them, while the cavalry made an attempt to enforce their attack simultaneously. The Arcadians did not swerve: in compact order they waited impassively. The Lacedaemonians charged a second time: a second time they swerved not, but on the contrary began advancing. Then, as the hoarse roar and shouting deepened, Archidamus himself advanced in support of his troops. To do so he turned aside along ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... Such words, disturbed in grief, they said: "O look, our hero, wont to ride Leading a host in perfect pride— Now Lakshman, sole of all his friends, With Sita on his steps attends. Though he has known the sweets of power, And poured his gifts in liberal shower, From duty's path he will not swerve, But, still his father's truth preserve. And she whose form so soft and fair Was veiled from spirits of the air, Now walks unsheltered from the day, Seen by the crowds who throng the way. Ah, for that gently-nurtured ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... the young runner, for a moment, and then his hands were on the back-board of the bouncing wagon. A tug, a spring, a swerve of the wagon, and Jack Ogden was in it, and in a second more the loosely flying reins were in ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard

... a matter of right, no difficulty in assuming their devotion a matter of course, no trouble in leaving their own affections to be understood; but most sons have found great difficulty in permitting their mothers to diverge one inch from the conventional, to swerve one hair's breadth from the standard of propriety appropriate to mothers of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the body lean in that direction. If a horse shy at any object, and either turn completely and suddenly round, or run on one side only, the body should, if possible, keep time with his movements, and adapt itself so as to turn or swerve with him; otherwise, the balance will be lost, and the rider be in danger of falling, on the side from which the animal starts. In no case, let it be remembered, should the rider endeavour to assist herself in preserving her balance, by ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous

... amidships. Its nose swung to one side, with no change in the direction of its motion. It floated onward. It was broadside to its line of travel. It continued to turn. It hurtled stern-first toward the Niccola. It did not swerve. It did not dance. It was a lifeless ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster

... thee health!" cried she. "Verily, thou hast imposed the discussion upon thyself; and thou hast spoken and hast not stinted and hast adduced these arguments, in support of thy contention. But now is the truth made manifest;[FN188] so swerve thou not from the path thereof; and if thou be not content with a summary of proof, I will set it out to thee in detail. God on thee, where is the boy beside the girl and who shall liken the kid to the wild cow? The girl is soft ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... consequences of the Revolution. I do not wish to say that nothing can be done to ameliorate this lamentable position; but I feel that, in a state of society so diseased, we require time and management, not to lose in a day the labour and fruit of many years. To know how to proceed, and never to swerve from that path, to make a step towards the desired end whenever it can be made, and never to incur the necessity of retreat,—this course appears to me to be one of the necessities of the time in which I have arrived at power, and one of the causes ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... did not even notice it himself in time to prepare, and the next instant the thief flung himself upon him and jammed his head against the iron rod that guided the rudder, with such a force that the rudder stayed in its place and the boat flew along the ice without a swerve. ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr

... my final decision. I am married to my reform movement and seek no divorce. I want all people to have free air as they have free sunlight. I am determined that neither favor nor force, neither Magnate nor money, shall swerve me from my course. The people of my time shall see their liberty, or I shall see ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... key to the gate: here it is." The Kashiku at a run passed by him. Kibei gave a shout. The frightened woman turned, recognized him, then sped on. In a few steps he was on her. The raised sword descended as she fell on her knees before him, in attempt to swerve its course. Through wrist and collar-bone, from neck to navel, the keen blade passed. Kibei threw the weapon aside. He leaned over her, his dagger drawn. Then he rose, holding by its tresses the head. For a moment he gazed on it. Slowly he walked ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... blest adventure might travel together two days or three, he thought. If the chariot did not pass:—Lord Ormont had willed it. A man could not be said to swerve in his duty when acting to fulfil the master's orders, and Mrs. Pagnell was proved a hoodwinked duenna, and Morsfield was in the air. The breathing Aminta had now a common purse with her first lover. For three days or more they were, it would seem, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... yea, by aecumenical councils,(156) should be proved and examined; and that, when the guides of the church do institute any ceremonies as necessary for edification, yet ecclesia liberum habet judicium approbandi aut reprobandi eas.(157) Nay, the canon law,(158) prohibiting to depart or swerve from the rules and discipline of the Roman church, yet excepteth discretionem justitiae and so permitteth to do otherwise than the church prescribeth, if it be done cum discretione justitiae. The schoolmen also give liberty to a private man, of proving the statutes of the church, ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... somehow—they knew not how. They are essentially tired of the war, and would slink back home if they could. These are the real tiers etat of the South, and are hardly worthy a thought; for they swerve to and fro according to events which they do not comprehend or attempt to shape. When the time for reconstruction comes, they will want the old political system of caucuses, Legislatures, etc., to amuse them and make them believe ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... could he do? Rapidly he turned over in his mind the various courses open to him. Should he try to stun Arima with a blow, and then reach forward and take the steering-wheel before the car could swerve into the ditch? ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin

... Majesty's good intentions towards me; the Tories may continue to rail at me, on the credit of such enemies as I have described to you in the course of this relation: neither the one nor the other shall make me swerve out of the path which I have ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke

... those prominent points, which in politics as well as in war are decisive, with which every thing is connected, and from which nothing ought to have made him swerve. But whether it was that Napoleon reckoned too much on the ascendancy of his genius, or the strength of his army, and the weakness of Alexander; or that, considering what he left behind him, he felt it too dangerous to carry on so distant ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... dissipations; his whole soul was in his business. He was conscious that his only hope of distinction above his fellow-men was in his wealth, and he was resolved that nothing should make him swerve from his endeavor to accumulate a fortune which should make him all powerful in life and remembered in death. He sought no friends, and was reticent as to his career, saying to those who questioned him about it, "Wait till I am dead; ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... Sioux, a dozen or more, following steadily after. He knew that they would hang on as long as any chance of capturing him remained, and he resolved to make use of the next swell that he crossed. He would swerve when he passed the crest, and while it was yet between him and his pursuers, perhaps he could find some friendly covert that would hide him. Meanwhile he clung tightly to his rifle, something that one always needed in this wild ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... that this was the dreariest evening aspect of the sea he had ever seen. He was glad when the other occupants of the poop left it at the sound of the bell. The captain first, with a sudden swerve in his walk towards the companion, and not even looking once towards his wife and his wife's father. Those two got up and moved towards the companion, the old gent very erect, his thin locks stirring gently about the nape of his neck, and carrying the rugs over his arm. The girl who was Mrs. Anthony ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... also, they go unsent. Listen, I couldn't Hope to keep the gift unless I jumped in this fight for right; but it's a man's job! I mustn't desert because of the gift! I mustn't take the prize before I finish the job! I want you to see that—always that I mind my p's and q's and don't swerve from that resolution. If I deserted and went down from the Ridge to the Valley, from hard to easy, I wouldn't be worthy of—do you understand what I am trying to ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... said Sir Christopher, chatting with Mr. Gilfil in the library, 'it really is a remarkable thing that I never in my life laid a plan, and failed to carry it out. I lay my plans well, and I never swerve from them—that's it. A strong will is the only magic. And next to striking out one's plans, the pleasantest thing in the world is to see them well accomplished. This year, now, will be the happiest of my life, all but the year '53, when I came into ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... hollow we sped like a bolt from an arblast. No monster lifted its neck; all knew the hoofs that thundered over their heads! We rushed up the hills, we shot down their farther slopes; from the rocky chasms of the river-bed he did not swerve; he held on over them his fierce, terrible gallop. The moon, half-way up the heaven, gazed with a solemn trouble in her pale countenance. Rejoicing in the power of my steed and in the pride of my life, I sat like a king ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... the sledge slip over the brow of the descent. It got larger as it came down, but it did not run as fast as the toboggan. One could see it rock and swerve, shaking off loose peats, where the ground was broken, and Grace glanced at the steep pitch Kit had come ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... the language well in all you write, and swerve not from it in your loftiest flight. The smoothest verse and the exactest sense displease us, if ill English give offence: a barbarous phrase no reader can approve; nor bombast, noise, or affectation ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... his own ears a somewhat explosive sound. They were uttered, however, and he was glad of it. A purpose thus formulated he would not swerve from. Of that his ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... no retort; he stands moveless as a stachoo. Thar's a flash an' a crash an' a cloud of bloo smoke; the aroused bronco makes a standin' jump of twenty foot. The Caldwell beauty keeps her saddle, an' with never a swerve or curve goes whirlin' away up the brown, burnt August trail, Bloojacket lays thar on his face; an' thar's a bullet as squar' between the eyes as you-all could set your finger-tip. Which he's dead—dead without a motion, while the poker ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... of Dunster the Rev. Mr. Mitchell had made up his mind that he "would have an argument able to remove a mountain" before he would swerve from his orthodoxy; he had since confirmed his faith by preaching "more than half a score ungainsayable sermons" "in defence of this comfortable truth," and he was now prepared to maintain it against all comers. ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... sometimes thought," said Thomas Hart Benton, "that General Jackson might have been a more equable tenant of the White House than he was had she been spared to share it with him. At all events, she was the only human being on earth who ever possessed the power to swerve his mighty will or ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... who have allowed themselves in this fiery ordeal to swerve from their duty to their State, through the temptation of personal gain, let me say that they will be branded and dishonored, despised at home and abroad; that they will be political pariahs forever, unless they reconsider their votes while yet there ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... Blackie tried to swerve and sidle down. Gloria lifted her whip and struck him. Blackie snorted and obeyed her command. Some loose dirt gave way underfoot, the tired beast stumbled, a dead limb caught at his legs, tripping him, and Blackie lurched downward ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... remained was how to swerve the headlong hunt to the true trail toward the only goal where the world's quarry, ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... every one but dive into his own bosom, and he will find his private wishes spring and his secret hopes grow up at another's expense. Upon which consideration it comes into my head, that nature does not in this swerve from her general polity; for physicians hold, that the birth, nourishment, and increase of every thing is the dissolution and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... he goes straight up. Similarly, this man evidently considered that, as roads were made for travel and distance for annihilation, one should turn on full speed and get there. Not one hair's breadth did he deign to swerve for chuck-hole or stone; not one fractional mile per hour did he check for gully or ditch. We struck them head-on, bang! did they happen in our way. Then my head hit the disreputable top. In the mysterious fashion of those who drive freight wagons my companion remained imperturbably ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... was now not my only source of peril. Target could no more be guided nor stopped than could the forest fire. The trail grew more winding and overhung more thickly by pine branches. The horse did not swerve an inch for tree or thicket, but ran as if free, and the saving of my life began to be a matter of dodging. Once a crashing blow from a branch almost knocked me from the saddle. The wind in my ears half drowned the roar behind me. With hands twisted ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... road. Blaine leaned forward, and pressed the electric bell rapidly twice, and there began a curious game. The other car put on extra speed and darted ahead—their own shot forward and kept abreast of it. It slowed suddenly, and made as if to swerve in behind; Blaine's driver slowed also, until both cars almost came to a grinding halt. Three times these maneuvers were repeated, and then there occurred what the detective had ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... wide open the swinging screen doors, and a broad belt of light is flashed across the dusty highway just in front of a rapidly-driven carriage coming north. The mettlesome horses swerve and shy. The occupants are suddenly whirled from their reposeful attitudes, though, fortunately, not from their seats. A "top hat" goes spinning out into the roadway, and a fan flies through the midst of the glare. The driver promptly checks his team and backs them ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... fetters unbroken. We regret that the Pope omitted to mention the Czechs in his peace offer although he mentioned the Poles. But we shall obtain our right without alien support. The Czechs will never swerve from their demand for an independent Slovak State with all the attributes of sovereignty. The Czechs are convinced that the question of Bohemia is too great to be solved in Vienna. It must be decided at ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... and alarmed at this unusual sight, felt an impulse to slow, to swerve, to test the apparition in some way; but second thought convinced him it must be ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... the same with us in blood and in speech, the same in religion and manners, and whose cause we will never betray. Know therefore now, if you knew not before, that, as long as a single Athenian survives, we will never swerve from the hostility to Persia to which we ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... by the immaculate efficacy, wherever it abides in greatest sanctity and fulness, by all the entrances and exits of the holy mount Libanus, and by all that is contained in the preface to the true history of Charlemagne, with the death of the giant Fierabras, not to swerve or depart from the oath I have taken, or from the commands which may be laid upon me by the least of these ladies, under penalty, should I do otherwise, or attempt to do otherwise, that from this time forth till then, and from thenceforth till now, the same shall be null and void ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... field in which he alighted was a sloping one and he ramped down it very enjoyably to himself, with all the weight of his sixteen hands and a half concentrated in his head, when suddenly a tall grassy bank confronted him, with, as he perceived with horror, a ditch in front of it. He tried to swerve, but there seemed something irrevocable about the way in which the bank faced him, and if his method of "changing feet" was not strictly conventional, he achieved the main point and found all four safely under him when he landed, which ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... the consummate address for which the favourite was remarkable, and it appeared certain that he would carry off the prize; but in lowering his lance he did not make sufficient allowance for the wind, and this caused it slightly to swerve, and though he touched the ring, he did not bear it away. The course, however, was considered a good one by the judges, and much applauded; but the Marquis was greatly mortified ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... giving the horse an unexpected slap with the reins after a particularly quick swerve to one side of the road on the animal's part. The horse cleared the road with a single leap sideways. He had been pricked by the sharp top of a bush at the instant the reins were brought down on his back. The reins not being ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge

... hack-but, falconet and saker, he can shoot with them all. And if it would please this right honourable gentleman, our guest, to hold out his hat at the distance of a hundred yards, our Halbert shall send shaft, bolt, or bullet through it, (so that right honourable gentleman swerve not, but hold out steady,) and I will forfeit a quarter of barley if he touch but a knot of his ribands. I have seen our old Martin do as much, and so has our right reverend the Sub-Prior, if he be pleased to ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... new code of laws. He might easily have perverted this almost unlimited power to dangerous uses, and his friends urged him to make himself supreme ruler of Athens. But he told them, "Tyranny is a fair field, but it has no outlet;" and his stern integrity was proof against all temptations to swerve from the path of honor and betray the trust ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... Jack, or breathed them only to their God, whose ear is always open to the cry of the afflicted, and whose hand is always ready to aid them. Well, I signed the pledge, which I am sure has a great effect in restraining one when tempted to swerve; for what man of honorable feelings would wilfully violate his word and promise—and a few weeks after, having fixed my sister comfortably with a pious milliner, I went to Philadelphia, and there shipped with a temperance captain for a South American ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... and Ronald was riding with Captain Campbell behind his troop, which happened to be in the rear in the regiment, two shots were fired from among the trees. The first struck Ronald's horse in the neck, causing him to swerve sharply round, a movement which saved his rider's life, for the second shot, which was fired almost instantly after the first, grazed his body and passed ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... distinguished by what we venture to call a very rare characteristic, in the sense in which we understand it,—an intense love of truth, which ever stimulated him to search after it as the chief part of his being's aim and end, and which never permitted him to swerve a hair's breath from it in practice. This made him a nonconformist, a separatist, an exile, an independent; a growing Christian, a profound theologian, an able controversialist; a student at Leyden University, although he had previously graduated and held ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... court; but it is a minute too late; the verdict has been given—the sentence pronounced. All the court judges, witnesses, counsel—look at each other in dismay; the great law automaton cannot be made to swerve in its path by any power there. And the average Englishman likes the contemplation of such a case, it is sneered; and the sneer may be joined in by those who, under other systems, have the immediate power of setting any such mistakes ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... grim Justice goes its way, And will not swerve aside: It slays the weak, it slays the strong, It has a deadly stride: With iron heel it slays the ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde

... compel it to declare in favor of the French revolution and against England." The second time was when he signed the treaty of 1795 with Great Britain, which produced a popular outburst from one end of the country to the other. In neither case did Washington swerve an iota from what he thought right, writing, "these are unpleasant things, but they must be met with firmness." Eventually the people always came back to their leader, and Jefferson sighed over the fact that "such is the popularity of the ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... be perceived to have two motions besides: one from west to east, which carries it round the heavens in 29.53 days, and another from north to south. The west to east motion is steady and continuous, but, owing to the Sun's attractive force, the Moon is made to swerve from its path, giving rise to irregularities of its motion called PERTURBATIONS. The most important of these is the annual equation, discovered by Tycho Brahe—a yearly effect produced by the Sun's disturbing influence as the Earth approaches or recedes from him in her orbit; another irregularity, ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... migratory birds as are on the wing at night to fly very high. But the great, glaring, piercing, single eye of Montauk light seems to draw into it by dozens, as a loadstone pulls a magnet, its feathered victims, and they swerve in their course and make straight for it. As they flash nearer and nearer, the light, of course, grows brighter and brighter, and at length they dash into what appears a sea of fire, to be crushed lifeless by the heavy glass, and they fall to the ground ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... entertainments just then, and, furthermore, he pictured himself as a future monopolist controlling the destinies of two houses. For he never dreamed, did this haggling, pettifogging lawyer, that Swiney would swerve from the old time allegiance to him, and he felt so secure on this point that he privately encouraged the desertion of his own forces. He made one exception, however, by stipulating that Cibber should remain at Drury Lane. Colley was too experienced, too versatile a man to be lost ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... to Purgatory, but never again; otherwise they would still retain something private, which has no place there. Being established in charity, they can never deviate therefrom by any defect, and have no will or desire save the pure will of pure love, and can swerve from it in nothing. They can neither commit sin nor ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... never faltered. He will convince the Germans at last that we are unfaltering, in the war, that nothing can swerve us from our goal,—the destruction of the autocracy which looks on war as good and seeks the dominion of the earth. When the Germans grasp that, then will come ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... this, and then that way, Trying effect of ribbon, bow or band. Then she would pick up something else, and curve Her lovely neck, with cunning, bird-like grace, And watch the mirror while she put it on, With such a sweetly grave and thoughtful face; And then to view it all would sway and swerve Her lithe young ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... no obstruction now, dear friends," resumed Mrs. Denison. "The long agony is over—the sad error corrected. The patience of hope, the fidelity of love, the martyr-spirit that could bear torture, yet not swerve from its integrity, are all to find their exceeding great reward. I did not look for it so soon. Far in advance of the present I saw the long road each had to travel, still stretching its weary length. But suddenly the pilgrimage has ended. The goal is won while yet the sun stands at ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur

... turned with a suddenness that caused the animal he rode to swerve. Recovering her composure as suddenly, she slightly inclined her head and turning from him, ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... such a letter should go, your Majesty would consider it suspicious; because it would be signed by some who would wish to see him undone, only because they do not dare to do otherwise; for he treats them like negro slaves when they swerve a point from his desires. About eight days ago he had called to his house all the honorable people, even to the master-of-camp and all the captains; and when they were before him, standing bareheaded, he treated them worse than he would his cobbler, speaking in these terms: "You don't ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair

... be induced to swerve from these assertions, notwithstanding repeated interrogations; and the writer was left to the conclusion—which he preferred, rather than place any confidence in the funeral letter—that the nurse's ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... cometh overal, Noght only of the temporal Bot of the spirital also. The dede proeveth it is so, And hath do many day er this, Thurgh venym which that medled is In holy cherche of erthly thing: For Crist himself makth knowleching 860 That noman may togedre serve God and the world, bot if he swerve Froward that on and stonde unstable; And Cristes word may noght be fable. The thing so open is at ije, It nedeth noght to specefie Or speke oght more in this matiere; Bot in this wise a man mai lere Hou that the world is gon aboute, The ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower

... despatched to a straggling start, and all negotiate the first bank safely. At the next fence a regular snorter of a 'post and rail'—topped with brushwood—two horses swerve, one rider being deposited on his racing seat upon mother earth, while the other sails away across country in a line for home, and is next heard of at the stables. The remaining five, three 'walers' and two country-breds, race together to the water jump, where one waler deposits his rider, and races ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... was a little in advance, keeping close to the wood, looking apparently into it in search of game, for he was as good a shot on horseback as on foot. Presently I saw his horse swerve on one side. With whip and spur he brought the animal again up to the wood. Just then there was a fearful roar. The horse again started on one side, the suddenness of his movement almost unseating his rider, whose cap was knocked off. The next moment a huge lion, breaking cover, sprang ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... the moorland face the silver flowes glittered unwholesomely, deadly as quicksands in the Bay of Luce. It was marvellous to see how gingerly the little beasts footed it in such places. Never did they let a foot sink to the fetlock. With a quick flinging swerve, they cast themselves to the side of safety and the foot would come loose with the "cloop" of an ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... is above all reproach, that I may say to myself: 'Thank God, I helped to make him what he is.' This is all that I want, Ned; and your future life will be your best acknowledgment, or will prove your heartless ingratitude. Let neither success nor failure tempt you to swerve from what your own heart tells you to be right and fair. Turn out as your schemes may, never forget to keep your motives pure; and believe me, that come what will, you'll find an easy conscience a great comforter in the hour of trial. Your ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... already learned the lesson it took France a century to learn, that liberty implies freedom of opinion for others, and that reasonable compromise is the true basis of constructive politics. When later he appeared to swerve, or to contradict himself, it was often enough merely because he felt the scruples of a true devotee of liberty, against imposing a policy. For the moment he had become a popular idol, the generous, brave, high-minded young knight, ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... his face with an "Exi a me, nam peccator sum." Sandro the painter was different—no mercy there. He made a snatch at a carbon and raised his other hand with a kind of command—"Holy Virgin! what a line! Stay as you are, I implore you: swerve not one hair's breadth and I have you for ever!" There was ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... too sublime for earth. It must be our guiding star to lead us rightly as far as we may go. We can travel rightly that part of the road we now tread on only by shaping it true to the great end that ought to inspire us all. We shall have many temptations to swerve aside, but the power of mind that keeps our position clear and firm will react against every destroying influence. In the first stage of the fight for internal unity, when blind bigotry is furiously ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... of their discontent, But sneers can never change a strong mind's bent. He knows his purpose and he does not swerve, And with a quiet mien and steady nerve He meets dark looks where'er his steps may go, And silence that is bruising as a blow, Where late were smiles and words of ardent praise. So pass the ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... amongst the lovers of bull-dogs, that when once exasperated by an opponent or encouraged by the owner, no pain or punishment will induce him to swerve from his purpose, or in the least relax the violence of his endeavours to subdue whatever may be the object of his dislike or resentment. Amidst the many instances which might be adduced in support of ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... inadvertently drawn into that dishonorable mode of life which has stained her character, and given her a place among the criminals noticed in this work, yet she possessed a rectitude of principle and of conduct, far superior to many who have not been exposed to such temptations to swerve from the path ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... question: How would he employ his Messianic power? By what means would he obtain leadership? In the desert his mind was concentrated on these problems. This story displays the temptations of a leader, and sums up his settlement on three points: first, he realized that he must not swerve aside for personal gratification, but must serve the will of God only; second, he must not debase his power by playing for popularity by means of spectacular, miraculous display; third, he must not win his leadership by methods that would mortgage him to the prince of this world, for instance ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... imparted to the flight of the ball in the air, but with the increase of pace came the possibility of doing this by a movement of the wrist as the ball left the hand, the twist thus given causing the ball, by the pressure on the air, to swerve to one side or the other, or downwards, according to the position of the hand and fingers as the ball is let go. The commonest of these swerving deliveries, and the first one invented, is the out-curve, the ball coming straight towards the batsman until almost within reach of his bat, when ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... thought of the days not so very far back, in which he had been all in all to her, her heart may have been melted into something of its former affection. But if so, it was only for a moment, nor did she ever allow the weakness to be seen. Her path had been taken, and nothing now could make her swerve from it. Before her enraptured fancy gleamed the state and rank belonging to a patrician's wife; and as she wove her toils with all the resources of her cunning, the prize seemed to approach her nearer and nearer. Now having advanced ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Vexed the fairy— Flew she down to Ealing. "GEORGIE, stop it! Pray you, drop it; Hark to my appealing: To this foolish Papal rule-ish Twaddle put an ending; This a swerve is From ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... the Adventurer caused her mind to swerve sharply off at a tangent. Where he had piqued and aroused her curiosity before, he now, since last night, seemed more complex a character than ever. It was strange, most strange, the way their lives, his and hers, had become interwoven! She had owed him much; ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... contrary. You must sing out right or left according as you see rocks ahead, and I shall steer with my paddle behind. I have a good deal more power over the boat than you have, and you must depend upon me for the steering, unless there is occasion for a smart swerve." ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... faithful found Among the faithless, faithful only he; Among innumerable false, unmoved, Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal; Nor number, nor example with him wrought To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, Though single. From amidst them forth he passed, Long way through hostile scorn, which he sustained Superior, nor of violence feared aught; And with retorted scorn his back he turned On those proud towers ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... had thought to shield and serve, Himself had ministry instead, He heard no vexing call to swerve From larger toil, for labors sped By smaller ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland

... bog by the Grove As you pound through the slush. See the whip! See the huntsman! We are close upon his brush. 'Ware the root that lies before you! It will trip you if you blunder. 'Ware the branch that's drooping o'er you! You must dip and swerve from under As you gallop through the woodland in ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the Dardan and Argolic race Had been contracted in that narrow space; Or as all Ilium else were void of fear, And tumult, war, and slaughter, only there. Their targets in a tortoise cast, the foes, Secure advancing, to the turrets rose: Some mount the scaling ladders; some, more bold, Swerve upwards, and by posts and pillars hold; Their left hand gripes their bucklers in th' ascent, While with their right they seize the battlement. From their demolish'd tow'rs the Trojans throw Huge heaps ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... expressed herself very miserable; hinted at the possibility of an early grave; said that nothing should induce her to swerve from the duty she owed her parents; implored me to forget her, and find out somebody more deserving, and all that sort of thing. She said she could, on no account, think of meeting me unknown to her pa and ma; and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... still held off; an occasional thunderstorm would trail over the ranges, but none came to the saddle. Sometimes it was as though an invisible hand held them back; I had more than once seen a rain cloud heading straight for the saddle, only to swerve to right or left, and pass sometimes within a ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... music, dancing, singing, and every other accomplishment considered necessary for the ladies of a harem. But I adhered to my resolution; every method to induce me to speak was tried in vain; even blows, torture from pinching, and other means were resorted to, but would not induce me to swerve from my resolution; at last they concluded that I was either born dumb, or had become so from fright at the time that the attack and slaughter of my family took place. I was eighteen months in the harem of Osman Ali, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... displayed a lack of nerve; You did not quite-now did you?-play the game; For when you saw me you were seen to swerve, Doubtless in order to disturb my aim. No, no, you must not ask me to forgive A swerve because you ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann

... She could not speak to her; she could not speak to her uncle in her presence. She could not stop. With what she had on her mind, and with what she had in her pocket, it would be impossible to say a word before that Maria Port! Without a swerve she sped on, and passed the toll-gate. She only knew one thing; she ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton

... midges dance in myriads; a silver gleam, and the line spins out, and the fly falls just in the right place. It is growing dusk, but the fellow is an adept at quick, fine casting—I wonder what fly he has on—why, he's going to try downstream now? I hurry forward, and as I near him, I swerve to the left out of the way. S-s-s-s! a sudden sting in the lobe of my ear. Hey! I cry as I find I am caught; the tail fly is fast in it. A slight, grey-clad woman holding the rod lays it carefully down and comes towards me through the gathering dusk. My first impulse is to snap the gut and take ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various

... road we groped our way along with infinite care. A shadow would sometimes bear down on the car, and suddenly swerve to one side as a horseman trotted by. A motor lorry would approach within a few feet of us before the driver would see, and stop before we crashed into each other. On the left were troops standing ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... remain[ee] For the lone Chieftain, who majestic stalks, Silent and feared by all—not oft he talks With aught beneath him, if he would preserve That strict restraint, which broken, ever balks Conquest and Fame: but Britons rarely swerve From law, however stern, which tends their strength ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... people, and ye, Alban people, hear. As those (conditions), from first to last, have been recited openly from those tablets or wax without wicked fraud, and as they have been most correctly understood here this day, from those conditions the Roman people will not be the first to swerve. If they first swerve by public concert, by wicked fraud, on that day do thou, O Jupiter, so strike the Roman people, as I shall here this day strike this swine; and do thou strike them so much the more, as thou art more able and more powerful." When ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius



Words linked to "Swerve" :   turn, peel off, turning



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