Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Thrill   /θrɪl/   Listen
Thrill

verb
(past & past part. thrilled; pres. part. thrilling)
1.
Cause to be thrilled by some perceptual input.
2.
Feel sudden intense sensation or emotion.  Synonyms: tickle, vibrate.
3.
Tremble convulsively, as from fear or excitement.  Synonyms: shiver, shudder, throb.
4.
Fill with sublime emotion.  Synonyms: beatify, exalt, exhilarate, inebriate, tickle pink.  "He was inebriated by his phenomenal success"



Related search:



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





"Thrill" Quotes from Famous Books



... the audience, who had hitherto been quite indifferent to the scenes intended for an introduction to the appearance of Morok. Every eye was now turned instinctively towards the cavern situated to the left of the stage, just below Mdlle. de Cardoville's box; a thrill of curiosity ran through the house. A second roar, deeper and more sonorous, and apparently expressive of more irritation than the first, now rose from the cave, the mouth of which was half-hidden by artificial brambles, made so as to be ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... air like a frightened deer. And to add to the horror of his situation, in descending his right foot came down squarely upon one of the rats, which emitted a strange cry, a sort of squeal, that sent a thrill throughout every nerve ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey

... the music throbs with mirth, Feet trip in time to it; yet what strange dearth Of glee midst all these graces! The quickening fire of spirit, passion, will, Seems scarce to move these dancing forms or thrill These irresponsive faces. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various

... at the sight, for all the way along he had been followed by a crowd of shadowy figures who danced about him from right to left, and from back to front, and Petru, though a brave man, felt now and then a thrill of fear. ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... novel which is read mainly for the thrill of the incident may be written in a far finer spirit. Most historical novels depend mainly upon the vigour of the action. The very best historical novelists must be excepted; in Scott, for example, as ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... went out, and we groped along in total darkness toward the rear of the house from where the sounds were coming. The cries had died down by this time into a horrible inarticulate wail, half animal, half human. I recognized the tones with a cold thrill; it was Mose. We found him groveling on the floor of the little passage that led from the dining-room to the serving room. I struck a light and we bent over him. I hated to look, expecting from the ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... no thought had been given to the lunch which Annie had prepared for the trip. She brought it out from among the wraps and when Carson gave the horse a buttered biscuit as his share of the meal, she watched the act with a thrill of gladness. The blazing logs gave warmth and light, and the man and woman sat and talked throughout the long watches of the night, while the snow drifted and the wind screamed and roared, making the loose clapboards of the roof ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds

... out his hand gently and tenderly touched hers, and there was something in the meeting of those two thin, yellow hands, stained with the same daily labour and not meeting for the first time thus, that sent a thrill to the two hearts and that might have brought a look of thoughtful interest into eyes dulled and wearied by the ordinary sights of this world. Vjera did not resent the innocent caress, but the colour that ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... hard for a French author not to be rhetorical, in the manner of the writer of "Ben Hur" when the death of Christ is described. No human author could improve on the words of the Vulgate, or the words of the King James version. What young heart can ponder over these words, without a thrill, St. John XIX ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... thing said—there is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident. A phrase springs up full blown, sweet and caressing. But what joy can there be in rolling up sentences that have no more life and beauty in them, intrinsically, than so many election bulletins? Where is the thrill in the manufacture of such a paragraph as that in which Mrs. Althea Jones' sordid habitat is described with such inexorable particularity? Or in the laborious confection of such stuff as this, from Book I, Chapter ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... possibly fail to find him; yet I had not found him; had failed, indeed, to find the slightest suggestion of his presence; and if those sounds had not a human origin, whence came they? It was the mystery of the thing, as well as the weird, unearthly character of the cries, that sent a thrill of horror through the marrow, and made me almost madly anxious to find an explanation. I worked the boat to and fro athwart those few square yards of ocean for a full hour or more, and shouted myself hoarse, until I at length most unwillingly abandoned ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... after repeated efforts on the part of M. de Bargeton, who, obedient to his wife, went round the room much as the beadle makes the circle of the church, tapping the pavement with his wand; when silence, in fact, was at last secured, Lucien went to the round table near Mme. de Bargeton. A fierce thrill of excitement ran through him as he did so. He announced in an uncertain voice that, to prevent disappointment, he was about to read the masterpieces of a great poet, discovered only recently (for although Andre de Chenier's poems appeared in 1819, no one in Angouleme had so much as ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... a time, happy in the delirium of youthful love. His tender attentions had completely won my heart. With a thrill of pleasure, covered by maiden modesty, I heard his first declaration of unalterable love for me. He saw too plainly the power he had over me. His aunt refused, as usual, her consent to our union; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... that, amid great bodily infirmity, he undertook the journey to Edinburgh, in May 1898, to attend the General Assembly. He was unable, indeed, to be present there more than once or twice, and when on one occasion he occupied the Moderator's chair for a few minutes, a thrill of respectful sympathy passed through the House. In a letter written a few days after his return home he says, "I am very pleased to have been able to give even such limited attendance," adding, with a touch of pathos, as if anticipating that the visit would be his last, "in the fiftieth ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... from day to day The price of sacrifice; Because we face each dreary place Again, again, again. Lord, set us free from Sanity— Who feel no fighting thrill; Must we remain for ever sane And never learn to kill? No answer came. In very shame Our long-unheeded cry Grew bitterly more bitterly, "O why, O why, O why. May we not feel the lust of steel The fury-woken thrill— ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... a dozen steps, and then stopped very suddenly. He stood still a moment, as one who is trying to believe something and cannot. He put a hand up over his shoulder and felt his back, and a great thrill shot through him. He grasped the skirt of the coat impulsively and another thrill followed. He snatched the coat from his back, glanced at it, threw it from him and flew back to the tunnel. He sought the spot where the coat had lain—he had to look close, for the light was waning—then ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... A thrill of excitement made every heart beat fast; cheeks glowed with pleasure, heads were borne erect with pride, and the ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan

... Grey it was with a thrill of pleasure that they sometimes saw the well-known flighty figure approaching, for there was always something worth looking at in Miss Barnicroft. Her garments were never twice alike, so that she seemed a fresh person every time. Sometimes she draped herself in flowing ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton

... with men and women in herds hurrying to their patriotic tasks, and a multitude of officers and enlisted men seeking their desks. She was here to join them, and she hoped that it would not be too hard to find some job with a little thrill ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... the country, on a morn in June, When the dew glistens on the pearled ears, 155 A shiver runs through the deep corn deg. for joy— deg.156 So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said, A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran Of pride and hope for ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... they reacted swiftly and generously to the pictures themselves. This, as I shall explain in another essay, is, to my mind, the proper function of criticism. I shall never forget my first visits to the Caillebotte collection; and in the unforgettable thrill of those first visits M. Mauclair's bad science and erratic judgement counted for something—much perhaps. They put me into a mood of sympathetic expectation; and such a mood is, even for highly sensitive people, often an indispensable preliminary to aesthetic appreciation. There are those who have ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... words bring a thrill even now, yet, in the midst of those stirring times, not a fortnight before the Declaration was signed, and after twenty years of marriage, he could write her like this. Even his reproaches are gentle, ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... clairvoyance having a higher authority than sense. Such a spirit might naturally be expected to pass into another world, since it already dwelt there at intervals, and brought thence its mysterious reports. Its incursions into the physical sphere alone seemed miraculous and sent a thrill of awe through the ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... thing, then, that patriots have waked up to this subject. Their trumpet should now thrill through the land, and urge all the young to enlist, at once, on the side of virtue. These can, if they will, cause the river of ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... troop, the flashing blade, The bugle's stirring blast, The charge, the dreadful cannonade, The din and shout are passed. Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal, Shall thrill with fierce delight Those breasts that nevermore shall feel The rapture ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... foolish but, for the small comfort I got out of it, I turned on the light and looked inside my wedding-ring. Time has worn it a bit but the letters which spell "My Lady of the Decoration," spelled again the old-time thrill into my heart. ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... execution do not affect beyond reason, may be accepted as a very remarkable artist. Temperament also counts for much in estimating musicians. Natures are sympathetic. A silent, separate chord vibrates in response to a thrill of sound which leaves other things unmoved. The heart of the young man speaks to the psalmist, but the old man's may be dull and unawakened. The homoeopathic formula, like cures like, may be adapted to musical criticism at least so far as to say that ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

... did, and a thrill of wonder and sudden anxiety passed over them when the trembling sensation became even more pronounced. Then they realized that a strange rumbling sound had arisen. It came from further up the mountain, and yet drew rapidly closer, increasing in intensity, until it began to assume the proportions ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster

... lads were, they could not avoid a thrill of horror, at the presence of the familiars of this dreaded body. They were, however, cheered by the thought of the promises of the young Spaniard, in whose honesty and honor they had great faith; and with a few words of adieu to the governor, and thanks to him for what he had done ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... care and watchfulness, and, assured by his confident manner that there was no danger, I "turned in," and soon fell asleep. How long I had slept I could not tell, but I was awakened by a sound that sent a thrill of terror to my heart, and caused the blood to curdle in my veins; for it was the terrible war-whoop ringing in my ears, so close and distinct, that it seemed to be in my ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... Destiny: He withdraws into the clouds, and only shews Himself at the end to raise up His poor creature. In Augustin the accent is tender, trusting, really like a son, and though he be harassed, one can discern the thrill of an unconquerable hope. Instead of crushing man under the iron hand of the Justice-dealer, he makes him feel the kindness of the Father who has got all ready, long before its birth, for the feeble little child: "The comforts of Thy pity received me, as I have heard from the father ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... American," Mr. Lawrence said, with a glad thrill in his voice, smiling over at Stevie's mamma, whose shining eyes smiled back at him. "Thank God, our boy is rising to his responsibilities. But don't let him know he's ...
— The Children's Portion • Various

... great and intoxicating to those who are constantly—either by desire or the force of circumstances—unselfish. A faint flush swept into Brigit's face under the effect of an experience so novel. Their twofold consciousness had all the pathos of self-effacement, and all the thrill of satisfied egoism. Such instants cannot last, and they are shortest when one's habits of thought are antagonistic to such luxury. Brigit sighed deeply, and roused herself with a painful sense that the minute she wilfully cut short had been ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... the invitation,—he would at any rate remain professional. The man withdrew, and almost immediately afterwards Prince Maiyo entered the room. The doctor rose to his feet with a little thrill of excitement. The Prince ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... marvel and was not perplexed. The miracles no longer amazed him, but he had not become indifferent or unthankful. Each forward step he took was a declaration of faith; the thrill of relief in his veins, a psalm of thanksgiving. The stones were as many and as sharp, the way as untender, and the mighty tempest strove against him as powerfully, but he followed the ray, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... disturb your night's rest. It is a gruesome, ghastly, blood-curdling, hair-erecting, sleep-murdering piece of work, with a thrill on every ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... down from the planer and started towards the door, more than one black hand was thrust into his with the words, "God bless you, sir!" He felt a strange desire to weep. Never before had he felt that thrill shoot through him at the grasp of the hand of his brother man. His speech had made a profound impression on the men. Many of them did not understand the meaning of certain sentences; but the spirit of Mr. Hardy was unmistakable, and the men responded ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon

... King, and as that was the highest compliment he could pay a girl, Marjorie felt a thrill of pleasure that King was going to ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells

... undulations incessantly commingle. Here the waves issuing from uncounted centres cross, coincide, oppose, and pass through each other, without confusion or ultimate extinction. Every star is seen across the entanglement of wave-motions produced by all other stars. It is the ceaseless thrill caused by those distant orbs collectively in the aether, that constitutes what we call the 'temperature of space.' As the air of a room accommodates itself to the requirements of an orchestra, transmitting each ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... be said against Terrence, one thing is quite certain, he was no bad dancing master, and Fernando was an apt pupil. Somehow, there was a spice of adventure in the escapade, which seemed to thrill Fernando with pleasure, and he entered into it with a ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... kindled with the majestic beauty of these eternal battlements and my voice trembled a little with awe and wonder; while my heart throbbed and thrilled in the midst of nature's eloquent, golden silence, this man sat there like an Etruscan ham and refused to throb or thrill. He was about as unsatisfactory a throbber and thriller as I have ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... fiery barrier and attempts to find some passage of escape, but vain the endeavor! It retreats toward the center of the ring, and as the heat increases and it begins to writhe under it, the children cry out with pleasure—a cry in which, I fancy, there is a cadence of the sound which sends a thrill of delight through hell—the sound of exultation which rises from the tongues of bigots when the martyr's soul mounts upward from the flames in which his body is consumed. Again the scorpion attempts to escape, and again it is ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson

... they inspire in those who have "lived and loved," but she was attracted by their tenderness and their passion. Certain lines she applied to herself—certain others to another person. The very word love so often repeated in the verses sent a thrill through all her frame. She aspired to taste those "intoxicating moments," those "swift delights," those "sublime ecstasies," those "divine transports"—all the beautiful things, in short, of which the poems spoke, and which were as yet unknown to her. How could she know them? How ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... was released for duty following his imprisonment, he several times passed the girl upon deck. He noticed that she shrank from him in disgust and terror; but what surprised him was that instead of the thrill of pride which he formerly would have felt at this acknowledgment of his toughness, for Billy prided himself on being a tough, he now felt a singular resentment against the girl for her attitude, so that he came ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the answer. Such a thrill of disappointment as ran through the little crowd, who stood at the door to witness her departure. "On straight!" Why, they must wait the post-boy's return before they could possibly know which way she went. Such provoking ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... him with a new interest, an odd thrill. His mother's room. His mother. He could just remember her, but that was all. The memories were childish and unsatisfactory, but they were memories. And she had slept there; this had been her room when she was a girl, before she married, ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... the exception, perhaps, of the Union, which was a fast ship, the most formidable in the Peruvian fleet, and Jim experienced a thrill of satisfaction at the thought that the Manco Capac and Atahualpa would, at any rate, not trouble the Chilians again. There was another ship lying close at hand, which Douglas judged to be the fast transport Oroya, because of her paddle wheels, ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... to their firesides to tell their wives and children of the peace and blessings promised them by Christiern. But it was not yet. Scarce had the echo of warfare died upon the wind when a frightful tragedy took place in Stockholm which sent a thrill of horror to the heart of Europe. At noon on the Wednesday following the coronation all the Swedish magnates with the authorities of Stockholm were summoned to the citadel and ushered into the august presence of their king. As they ranged themselves about the great hall, the ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... died while he was very young. At fifteen he had been taken away from a boarding-school to be sent into the employment of a process-server. The gendarmes invaded his employer's residence one day, and that worthy was sent off to the galleys—a stern history which still caused him a thrill of terror. Then he had attempted many callings—apothecary's apprentice, usher, book-keeper in a packet-boat on the Upper Seine. At length, a head of a department in the Admiralty, smitten by his handwriting, had employed him as a copying-clerk; but the consciousness of a defective ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... the face of the robber who fancied himself unobserved, and with a thrill of excitement he recognized the man whom he had met twice before in New York, and who had called himself Hamilton Schuyler. At the same time, glancing at the upturned face of the recumbent figure he saw that it was his uncle, ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger

... substitution of Anaconda for the properties originally intended for the first section of Amalgamated, I had felt that this balancing of accounts would be a crucial affair, and after the recent turn of the screw, I hardly knew what to expect, but was ready for the worst. Now a swift thrill of apprehension suggested I'd better look for real deviltry. There was perhaps a minute's delay while he fumbled in his pocket and drew out letters and papers. My blood steeplechased in my veins as I waited for him to deal me the hand that might decide my fate. In such tense ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... approached Larkin and roused him up. This time his hands were bound behind his back and he noticed that the masked rustler was fastening them tightly but with a rotten rawhide. This peculiar circumstance caused a wild thrill to flash all through Larkin's being. Perhaps, after all, here was the weak link in the rustler's chain. The surmise became a certainty when the man, unobserved by his companions, sawed Bud's arms back and forth, ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... the instrument, a hymn or two of the Dixie mountaineers: "To play on the golden harp" and "Where there's no more stormy clouds arising." Being further urged for a negro hymn, John began "Bow low a little bit longer," which Barbara, with a thrill of recollection and an involuntary gesture of pain, said she couldn't sing, and they gave another instead, one of the best, and presently had the whole company joining in the clarion refrain of "O Canaan! bright ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... ten o'clock on the night, as he lay with his party behind the bank of which I have spoken, that a pleasurable thrill of anticipation began to take hold of Samuel. A slight frost nip was in the air, and in the sky there shone a myriad stars. Away behind him lay the trenches he had just quitted, peaceful and still in the faint ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... lay of love and the light note of gladness Have waken'd thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill; But, so oft hast thou echoed the deep sigh of sadness, That ev'n in thy mirth it will ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... unaccountable fear and hate. Yes, Poggin had sent the cold sickness of fear to his marrow. Why, since he hated life so? Poggin was his supreme test. And this abnormal and stupendous instinct, now deep as the very foundation of his life, demanded its wild and fatal issue. There was a horrible thrill in his sudden remembrance that Poggin likewise had been taunted ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... mind when we stood on the brink of Great Shoshone Falls. In Yellowstone the proudest thought was that all the world's other similar wonders were commonplace; and at Yosemite's Inspiration Point the unspeakable thrill of awe and delight was richly heightened by the grand idea that there was no such majesty or glory beyond either sea. But after all this, we now know that it yet remains for the Alaskan trip to rightly round ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax

... like to break over him. He was my first Aniwan Convert—the first who ever on that Island, of love and tears opened his heart to Jesus; and as he lay there on the leaves and grass, my soul soared upward after his, and all the harps of God seemed to thrill with song as Jesus presented to the Father this trophy of redeeming love. He had been our true and devoted friend and fellow-helper in the Gospel; and next morning all the members of our Synod followed his remains to the grave. There we stood, the white Missionaries ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton

... agent, came to salute his lord, thinking to do honour for his fief. Thereupon the king said to him, in a jocular manner, that the Spanish ladies were of a passable temperature, and their system a fair one, but that when gentleness was required they substituted frenzy; that he kept fancying each thrill was a sneeze, or a case of violence; in short, that the embrace of a French woman brought back the drinker more thirsty than ever, tiring him never; and that with the ladies of his court, love was a gentle pleasure ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... again, thinking it to be an illusion, I heard many footfalls, as if a large number of persons were rushing down the steps. A strange thrill of delight, slightly tinged with fear, passed through my frame, and though there was not a figure before my eyes, methought I saw a bevy of joyous maidens coming down the steps to bathe in the Susta in that summer evening. ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore

... disappointment in her eyes, and Sanders experienced a strange thrill the like of which he ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace

... the longing of centuries that incarnates a god, a real Sun-God, whose vibrant love-life can thrill other lives into prayer—aspiration, the struggle for eternal life. The dawn represents the ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne

... him like an electric shock. Hitherto he had been somewhat flattered, somewhat amused, and only occasionally a little bored, by the favor which the beautiful and wealthy young widow had so openly accorded him; but now in a second he felt that thrill of disgust which always comes to a sensitive man when he sees a woman step beyond the pale of delicate womanhood. If he had been one shade less of a gentleman, he would have said something which Mrs. Lancaster could never have forgotten. As it was, he had sufficient command of himself to speak carelessly. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... A thrill of delicious excitement ran through Rebecca's frame, from her new shoes up, up to the leghorn cap and down the black braid. She pressed Mr. Cobb's knee ardently and said in a voice choking with tears of joy and astonishment, "Oh, it can't be true, it can't; ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... eager straining of eyes; again the shouts and cheering; again the thrill of excitement, as, after a few moments, four or five, in advance of, the rest, come speeding back, nearer, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... mid-air at great height above the swirling waters of the "great speaker." In the distance, towering above a mass of stupendous mountains, is a magnificent snow-capped peak. The desire to see the Apurimac and experience the thrill of crossing that bridge decided me in favor of ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... a thrill swept the house, and one heard deep breaths drawn. Two guardsmen followed her at a short distance to the rear. Her head was bowed a little, and she moved slowly, she being weak and her irons heavy. She had on men's attire—all black; a soft woolen stuff, ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... A thrill of horror flashed through every soul upon the plantation, excepting Mr. Gore. He alone seemed cool and collected. He was asked by Colonel Lloyd and my old master, why he resorted to this extraordinary expedient. His reply was, (as well as I can remember,) ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... summer sends a mighty thrill Through clust'ring icy floes, until Their shudd'ring breaks the ghastly sleep ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey

... occasional sprees to the theaters or other places of amusement. The girls gave no coherent reason for their actions beyond the statement that they liked the excitement and the fun of it. Doubtless to the thrill of danger was added the pleasure and interest of being daily in the shops and the glitter of "down town." The boys are more indifferent to this downtown life, and are apt to carry on their adventures on the docks, the railroad tracks or best of ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams

... some event yet to occur, something much beyond what they had yet felt or experienced. But who could look in the agitated faces of the travellers and not see that it was joy which so overcame them? Who could see the radiant smiles shining through the irrepressible tears and not feel a thrill of ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... admirable. He allured as the warrior, intrepid and graceful, allured the maiden, as the forest calls the householder. Something primordial and splendid and very sweet was in her feeling toward him. There could be no peaceful wedlock there, no security of home, no comfort, only the exquisite thrill of perilous union, the madness of a few short weeks—perhaps only a few swift days of self-surrender, and then, surely, disaster and despair. To yield to him was impossible, and yet the thought ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... loosened her tongue, gave her whole being expression, and made her words thrill. She took off her hat as if to free her body, even by that little, while she drank in the scene of leaping flames, the crescendo of light, the pathetic, noble emptiness between the fire-eaten pillars ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... and he was standing again on the ridge below the Hotel du Chancelier, looking out over the glimmering lamps of Revonde, dominated, as always, by the regnant red eye of the Guards' Dome, and he felt once more that strange new warmth and thrill in his veins which, at the time, he had believed to be born of an opening career beset with danger and difficulty. To-night, however, he judged more clearly; he knew that his dull life had been rekindled, ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... pedestrian, to be sure; for devotees of the staff and pack have come to associate pedestrianism with the idyllic, and the idyllic nourishes only in a land of frequent showers. Theocritus and prickly pears are not compatible. Yet it was not without a certain thrill of exaltation that we strapped on our packs and stretched our legs after four days on ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... a specialist, but all successful specialization rests upon the broad foundations of general culture. The reason why there are so many singers and so few artists who thrill us with the revelation of the intimate beauties of the songs of Franz, Grieg, and MacDowell, to take only a few names from the rich list of song writers, is because people sing without acquiring the range ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer

... in his iron corslet, leading a forlorn hope, and, by the personal charm of his valour, changing fugitives into heroes and defeat into victory, had afforded many examples of sublime unconsciousness of disaster, such as must ever thrill the souls of mankind. But it is more difficult to be calm in battle and shipwreck than at the writing desk; nor is that the highest degree of fortitude which enables a monarch—himself in safety—to endure without flinching the destruction of his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... serving only to prove her a bird, which otherwise might be doubted of. Her head is variously drest, the one-half hooded with downy blackish feathers; the other perfectly naked, of a whitish hue, as if a transparent lawne had covered it. Her bill is very howked, and bends downwards; the thrill or breathing-place is in the midst of it, from which part to the end the colour is a light green mixed with a pale yellowe; her eyes be round and small, and bright as diamonds; her clothing is of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various

... names," and the soldier heroes who held the frontier "like a wall of steel from Flanders to Alsace,"—the heroes of Souchez, of Dixmude, of the Maison du Passeur, of Souain, of Notre Dame de Lorette, and of the great retreat. It made a long list and I could feel the thrill running all over the room full of soldiers who, if they live, will be a part of that triumphal procession, of which no one talks yet ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... the English year, told in a way that convinces us of his intimate acquaintance with it. Half the interest of Mr. Parsons' work is in the fact that he paints from a full mind and from a store of assimilated knowledge. In every touch of nature that he communicates to us we feel something of the thrill of the whole—we feel the innumerable relations, the possible variations of the particular objects. This makes his manner serious and masculine—rescues it from the thinness of tricks and the coquetries of chic. ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... notable speech in favor of the admission of Iowa. He pleaded the mission of the Northwest as the mediator between the sections and the unifying agency in the nation, with such power and pathos as to thrill even ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... conceived. There were many lines upon his brow and round his eyes, but his complexion was as fresh as that of a child, and he stepped as briskly as a youth. We bowed low to him, and he reached out his hands, taking Amroth's hand and mine in each of his. His touch had a curious thrill, the hand that held mine being firm and smooth ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... abruptly interrupted the yarn, and close under our bows there rose another leviathan, so closely indeed that, unless it was a trick of the imagination, I felt a slight tremor thrill through the boat, as though he had touched us! Involuntarily I glanced over the side; and it was perhaps well that I did so, for there, right underneath the boat, far down in the black depths, I perceived a small, faint, glimmering patch of phosphorescence, that, as I looked, grew larger ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... him.] As I and Percy! When at the marriage rites, O rites accurs'd! I seiz'd her trembling hand, she started back, Cold horror thrill'd her veins, her tears flow'd fast. Fool that I was, I thought 'twas maiden fear; Dull, doting ignorance! beneath those terrors, Hatred for me ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More

... tightly her small hands are clasped! How very small they are! Is that the first ring he had given her, shining on her third finger? She had not flung that back in his face, at all events! He hardly understands the wild, quick thrill of joy that this knowledge affords him. And how ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... sleepers with his joyous greeting. Let it chant the praises of the hampers of wine, and fowls, and dainties, and the bundles of toys, that same lumbering carriage contained. And last, but not least, let it thrill with the glad shout of a little newsboy, who, frantic with delight, hurried on a new gray suit and a pair of bran-new boots, a present received that very day from his then unknown ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong

... Afghan tribes, and to their bitter and savage hostility was due the result which we have briefly described. It was a result with which the British authorities were not likely to remain satisfied. The news of the massacre sent a thrill of horror through the civilized world. Retribution was the sole thought in British circles in India. A strong force was at once collected to punish the Afghans and rescue the prisoners. Under General ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... ancestors' regard for ease. Whenever I have occasion to go to my "Jacobean" chest of drawers (chests of this type are said really to belong to the end of the seventeenth century) the softness and ease with which the drawers run always gives me a slight thrill of pleasure. They run on grooves along the side of each drawer, so that they can never catch, and when one examines them one finds that grease, now black with age, had been applied to the grooves. (In chests ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... was really something to sit there eating breakfast knowing that, today, Dad was going to rocket to the Moon. And with Mom not even knowing the Lunar project was in the works, so naturally not dreaming that he was going with Dad! The thrill was overpowering. ...
— Zero Hour • Alexander Blade

... of and behind Hugh, like an adjutant at dress parade. Through the ferry rushed the weary, impatient travellers. Owing to the place Hugh had taken at one side of the run, Grace, at first, did not perceive him. Anxiety, almost fright, showed in her face; there passed through her a thrill of consternation at the thought that perhaps he had not received her telegram. The tense figure clasped the travelling-bag convulsively, and her brown eyes flashed a look of alarm over the waiting throng. Another moment ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon

... A thrill of conviction rippled through the Chamber. The silence was absolute. Everybody was holding his breath so as not to lose a syllable from that faint voice, which sounded like a cry from a distant tomb. It was ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... shoulder—what can one make of such a denouement? But the quick inference, the subtle trap, the clever forecast of coming events, the triumphant vindication of bold theories—are these not the pride and the justification of our life's work? At the present moment you thrill with the glamour of the situation and the anticipation of the hunt. Where would be that thrill if I had been as definite as a timetable? I only ask a little patience, Mr. Mac, and all will ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... superb temple, so amply filled with the products of human industry, embracing that which was regally magnificent, as well as that most applicable to our daily needs—without an enthusiastic thrill. If man is weak in many things, he is also grand in much; and every thoughtful observer must have paused upon this threshold to pay a tribute to that untiring energy which must make the world better for ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... unresisting hand, and drew her toward me. My very soul seemed to thrill at the contact of ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... this was the building begun by the Agrigentines after the defeat of the Phoenicians at the Himera, when slaves were many and spoil was abundant, and Hellas both in Sicily and on the mainland felt a more than usual thrill of gratitude to their ancestral deity. The greatest architectural works of the island, the temples of Segeste and Selinus, as well as those of Girgenti, were begun between this period and the Carthaginian invasion of 409 B.C. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... vague sea lay a thing exhausted, motionless, perhaps fainting in the dark. And in this heat and stillness there was no presage, no thrill, however subtle, of a coming change, of storm. Rather there was the deadness of eternity, as if this swoon would last forever, neither developing into life, nor ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... and read of such scenes, but we can tell you from experience that vision is necessary to enable one to realise the full import of all that goes on. There was a strange thrill at the heart of young Welton when he saw the familiar blue-and-white boat leaping over the foaming billows. Often had he seen it in model and in quiescence in its boat-house, ponderous and almost ungainly; but now he saw it for the first time in action, as if endued ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... she reached the farm once more. She had been very quiet during the ride, and Jack was not a person of many words, but when Bet came out to clasp her in her arms, and her friend Flick went nearly mad with joy, she felt a thrill of satisfaction that by her means those she loved were still left in peaceful enjoyment ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall

... companion did not make his appearance, and for the first time a feeling of dread touched her heart. She strove to avert it, however, by considering that Frank might have been obliged to follow the wolf farther than he expected or intended. Then a thrill of fear passed through her breast as the thought occurred, "What if the wolf has attacked and killed him?" As time wore on, and no sound of voice or gun or bark of dog broke the dreary stillness of that gloomy place, ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... knew the gratitude with which his name was remembered for long, long years, and the thrill of emotion which its utterance always excited in the heart of that befriended boy. An act of kindness is never lost, and many a one which the benefactor may have forgotten, has won for him the prayers and blessings of ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown

... his way of flinging them at her were like a box on the ear; and Annesley, lying in her hammock, heard with a thrill of pleasure. She was ashamed of the thrill, and ashamed (because suddenly awakened to the ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... But applause is a habit. One applauds in a theater. How does it sound in the wings to you, madam, our applause? Rather meaningless, eh? And not interesting at all? Ah, we forgive you for that, for not feeling a great thrill at our applause. Nevertheless, it is a rather piquant thing, our applause. Considering how cold it is outside, how long winter is in passing. Considering how ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... Robin Gray." Never was so sweet a voice as this singer's, never did woman have a higher gift of rescuing the soul from every-day use and wont and giving it glimpses from the mountain-summit and the thrill and inspiration which come from the wider view and the purer air. She gave her gift, she enriched the world, and her songs are still incorporate in the hearts and souls ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... pantaloons should give way—"Impute all to your own lucid ambiguity, and to the torments of hope that I experience. Repeat that 'yes,' lovely, consolatory, imaginative being, and raise me from the thrill of depression, to the liveliest pulsations of all ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper

... a week in coming, a tremendously long time it seemed to Dick, but it came at last. He climbed into the basket with Colonel Newcomb, two generals, and the aeronauts and sat very quiet in a corner. He felt an extraordinary thrill when the ropes were allowed to slide and the balloon was slowly going almost straight upward. The sensation was somewhat similar to that which shook him when he went into battle at Bull Run, but pride came to his rescue and he soon forgot the physical tremor ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... pleasant and interesting experience, to dart through the air and be in no danger of falling. When they rested on their outstretched wings they floated as lightly as bubbles, and soon a joyous thrill took possession of them and they began to understand why it is that the free, wild birds are always so happy in ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum

... Gate of the Transition or Passing Through from death to life: wherever man enters, there is the Rose, and with her all the twin-symbols;—and when, bearing a rose, you chance to pass through some antique rock-gap, far inland, near a running stream, start not, reader, should a strange thrill, as of a solemn vanished life, sweep over you; for so surely as you live, know that in ancient days the footsteps of the rose-bearing worshipper went before you through that narrow pass, performing, by so doing, the rite typical of new birth, revival, ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... like diamonds shone She moved in light of her own making. At length as from that airy height I gently lowered my breathless flight, The tremble of my wings all o'er (For thro' each plume I felt the thrill) Startled her as she reached the shore Of that small lake—her mirror still— Above whose brink she stood, like snow When rosy with a sunset glow, Never shall I forget those eyes!— The shame, the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... fatal news sent a thrill of horror through the community. The brilliant, fiery youth of Hamilton, which had lighted his countrymen to victory and a place among the nations—Hamilton, the counsellor of Washington, the consummate statesman of the Constitution, the reliance of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... A little thrill shot through me as I noted the newer, deeper lines etched in Sir Henry's pallid face, and the grave silence of De Lancey, as he stood by the window, arms folded, eying his ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... often drawn to the place where his brother was at work, and that the sight of so many artists, most of them young men, filled with the generous ardor of youth, and inspired by the nature of their task, should have stirred in him an answering enthusiasm. It gives us a thrill of pleasure to read in the list of these youths the name of the great tragic poet, Euripides, who began life as a painter, and in whose plays we find more than one reference to the art. It cannot be thought unreasonable to suppose that two such intelligences ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... not tell this) unless she is his wife a man is shot with a thrill of exultation every time a pretty woman allows ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... light upon darkness insensible to it. Therefore, the presentation of the Divine contents of the soul or character of Jesus to different persons was an unerring test of their previous moral state: the good would apprehend him with a thrill of unison, the bad would not. To have the Son, to have the Father, to have the truth, to have eternal life, all are the same thing: hence, where one is predicated or denied ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... he left his patient that night, she was free from pain, breathing feebly, and without constriction of the chest. In the morning, he found her with considerable fever, and suffering from a return of the pleuritic pain. Her pulse was low and quick, and had a wiry thrill under the fingers. The doctor had taken blood very freely on the night before, and hesitated a little on the question of opening another vein, or having recourse to cups. As the lancet was at hand, and most easy ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur

... literary use, vocal or written. The fortune of a tale lies not alone in the skill of him that writes, but as much, perhaps, in the inherited experience of him who reads; and when I hear with a particular thrill of things that I have never done or seen, it is one of that innumerable army of my ancestors rejoicing in past deeds. Thus novels begin to touch not the fine DILETTANTI but the gross mass of mankind, when they leave off to speak of parlours and shades of manner and still-born niceties of motive, ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... altogether the supply of air, and so stifle the fire. This was on Thursday morning. Nothing was done on Friday; and on Saturday afternoon the mining authorities met again in council. There were experts there now from all parts of the kingdom—for the extent of the catastrophe had sent a thrill of horror through the land. It was agreed that the earth and staging should be removed next morning early, and that if smoke still came up, water should be ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty



Words linked to "Thrill" :   excite, pick up, lift up, fright, excitement, fear, excitation, shake up, quiver, stimulate, exhilaration, uplift, intoxicate, shake, stir, tremble, fearfulness, elate



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com