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Throb   /θrɑb/   Listen
Throb

verb
(past & past part. throbbed; pres. part. throbbing)
1.
Pulsate or pound with abnormal force.  "Her heart was throbbing"
2.
Expand and contract rhythmically; beat rhythmically.  Synonyms: pulsate, pulse.
3.
Tremble convulsively, as from fear or excitement.  Synonyms: shiver, shudder, thrill.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Throb" Quotes from Famous Books



... and associations by riding up to College Hill in Dan Flannagan's jitney-bus—a youthful, hilarious crowd of alumni. Former students, alumni, parents of graduating Seniors, friends, sweethearts—every train would bring its quota. The campus would again throb and pulsate with that perennial quickening—Commencement. Three days of reunions, Class Day exercises, banquets, and other events, then the final exercises, and—T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., would ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... often to the Gardens she went. There were so many dear places where trees grew and made quiet retreats—all the parks and heaths and green suburbs—and everywhere pairs walked or sat and talked, and were frankly so wholly absorbed in the throb of their own existences that they had no interest in, or curiosity concerning, any other ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... it. Then the punkah flagged, almost ceased. The sweat poured from Spurstow's brow. Should he go out and harangue the coolie? It started forward again with a savage jerk, and a pin came out of the towels. When this was replaced, a tomtom in the coolie-lines began to beat with the steady throb of a swollen artery inside some brain-fevered skull. Spurstow turned on his side and swore gently. There was no movement on Hummil's part. The man had composed himself as rigidly as a corpse, his hands clinched at his sides. The respiration ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... laurels? In "Les Miserables" are heroes not a few. Gavroche, that green leaf blown about Paris streets; Fantine, the mother; Eponine, the lover; Bishop Bienvenu, the Christian; Jean Valjean, the man,—all are heroic folk. Our hearts throb as we look at them. Gavroche, the lad, dances by as though blown past by the gale. Fantine, shorn of her locks of gold; Fantine, with her bloody lips, because her teeth have been sold to purchase medicine for her sick child—her child, yet a child of shame; Fantine, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... and green, undisturbed, except by the shriek of the passing steamer, casting golden-green reflections into the stream at twilight, and shadows of deepest blackness, star-pierced, at remoter depths of night. Here, now and then, a stray gull from the sea sends a flying throb of white light across the mirror below, or the sweeping wings of a hawk paint their moth-like image on the blue surface, or a little flaw of wind shudders across the water in a black ripple; but except for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... the service Ben sat where he could see Grace by turning his head, but he had not the courage to do so. Once or twice he caught a glimpse of the curve of her cheek and the delicate lines of her ear, and a suffocating throb came into his throat. ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... faltered Mona, her heart giving a great throb. She had entirely forgotten that the landlord's agent was coming for his rent that afternoon. "The money's on the dresser. I ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... quick, she battles with the storm That gathers in her breast and trembling form. She stills her heart—heeds not its painful throb, Drives back her longings, stifles every sob; And bravely through the watches of the night, She turns her soul to God for help and light. A prayer breathed low, a struggle long and wild, Then peace comes near, and like ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

... social and economic life, culminating in a political act of violence, are similar to the terrors of the atmosphere, manifested in storm and lightning. To thoroughly appreciate the truth of this view, one must feel intensely the indignity of our social wrongs; one's very being must throb with the pain, the sorrow, the despair millions of people are daily made to endure. Indeed, unless we have become a part of humanity, we cannot even faintly understand the just indignation that accumulates in a human soul, the burning, ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... the set figure before him. When he mentioned the will which Georgian had made a few hours prior to her disappearance, Hazen's hand slipped aside from the wound it had sought to cover, and Ransom caught sight of the sudden throb which deepened its hue. It was the one infallible sign that the man was not wholly without feeling, and it had sprung to life at an ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... was a quick throb of energy, and off they sped. Almost without a sound the motor shot along the sand of the Harbor Road and whirled into the pine-shaded thoroughfare ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... in the mother-o'-pearl mood best of all; and he saw, with a throb of pride, how the important Boy-from-India seemed too absorbed in watching her even to show off. She did not stay many minutes and she said very little. She was still, by preference, quiet during a meal; and it gave her a secret thrill of pleasure to see the habit of her own race reappearing ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... an arm-chair—all these are brought together and mingled with the grief and regret which were the origin of the mood. Why is Dream Children a classic? It is a classic because it transmits to you, as to generations before you, distinguished emotion, because it makes you respond to the throb of life more intensely, more justly, and more nobly. And it is capable of doing this because Charles Lamb had a very distinguished, a very sensitive, and a very honest mind. His emotions were noble. He felt so keenly that he was obliged to find relief ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett

... been waiting longingly throw off his blanket and rush across the field into his position and instantly the news flashes through the stands. "Brother against brother!" goes the thrilling whisper—and every heart gives an extra throb as it hungers in an unholy but perfectly human way for a clash between the two. There were three Harlan brothers who played at Princeton in '81, ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... enduring, much revered! To thee Bring sun-dyed millions love more sweet than fame, And happy isles that star the purple sea Homage;—and children at the mother's knee With her's unite thy name; And faithful hearts, that throb 'neath palm and pine, From East to West, are thine. For as some pillar-star o'er sea and storm Whole fleets to haven guides, so from that height One great example points the path of Right, And purifies the home; with gracious ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... ship high into the air, as Tom shut off the power from the camera. Then the Flyer was sent well on in advance of the stampede of elephants, so they could no longer see it, or hear the throb of the powerful engines. Tom hoped that this would serve to ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton

... for a space, regarding him with black eyes seeking to read every throb of his heart. Dick was conscious, too, that the similar gaze of all the others was upon him. But he did not flinch. Why should he? ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... me—alas! not for me," she murmured; and her head drooped, and it seemed as though a cold hand were laid on her breast, saying, "Grow still, and throb ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... benumbing effects of the blow she had suffered, she were still sending a thought, a hope for success in his direction. Unconsciously to himself, his pulses were tingling and throbbing with the music, and the throb and tingle brought back to him the memory of the pounding of his pulses, that morning in the cottage, only a week before. He had almost yielded to their sway; then he had rallied. He had gone through the shock of Lorimer's death, through the hasty ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... itself through the arid shells of conventionalism; it is at once the agony and the consolation of a despairing soul. Heartless, Mme. du Deffand is called, and her life seems to prove the truth of the verdict; but these letters throb and palpitate with feeling which she laughs at, but cannot still. It is the cry of the soul for what it has not; what the world cannot give; what it has somehow missed out of a cold, hard, restless, and superficial existence. With a need of loving, she is satisfied with no ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... Viewing these horrors? trembles not thy heart At the dread thought, that here its life's-blood soon Now warm in life and feeling, mingle soon With the cold clod? a thought most horrible! So only dreadful, for reality Is none of suffering here; here all is peace; No nerve will throb to anguish in the grave. Dreadful it is to think of losing life; But having lost, knowledge of loss is not, Therefore no ill. Haste, Maiden, to repose; Probe deep the seat of life." So spake DESPAIR The vaulted roof echoed his hollow voice, And all again ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey

... though she felt a violent throb at the heart when she heard the key turning in the lock behind her. She was in an ante-chamber, and inferring from the light which shone through the door of an adjoining room that she was to proceed, she went on. No sooner had she entered the little closet than she found herself ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... Clarmont, hidden wife scandal, I shall do it without him. One thing in my favour is, that as he swears against matrimony, people will say the secret reason is out of—Why! Eleven forty-five; my future spouse should soon appear; how my heart would beat, and every pulse throb and burn, if it were my king; now, I am as cool as the czar of Wall Street. My sleeves fit well; this make suits me," and she pushed to the wrist her bracelets of the golden dollar. "And my boots also; I do take as much pride in my foot as the men do in their moustache. ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... at this moment, as I clung against the wall, sheltering myself as well as I could from the pouring rain, that I heard through its steady beating an equally steady throb as of some sort of machine. It was a very subdued, scarcely apparent sound, but it was there—it was unmistakable. And suddenly—though in those days we were only just becoming familiar with them—I knew what it was—the engine of some sort of automobile; but not in action; the sound ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher

... an aisle between them and put myself away in a sort of life-preserver closet. Not till I had heard the familiar throb of the propeller in motion for a long ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... clearing began to grow brighter with light from the still hidden moon, and we were halfway down to the boat landing before anyone thought of him. Oddly enough it was I who remembered. "Sami!" I exclaimed, with a little throb of nameless ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... fast by a detaining splinter; and then Tot's mamma had run ahead and led them across the meadow, right in the track of Tot's little feet, straight to the river. And then grandmamma had said, quaveringly, that Tot was always asking to go to Sugar River; and then Will's heart had given a great guilty throb, and sank way, way down. He knew so well why. And then Tot's mamma had thrown up her two hands, and darted towards a little string of coral beads and picked it up. And, as they stood there, the river's murmur seemed like the murmur of the river ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.

... Thus within the last few weeks we have had novels from Eden Phillpotts, Miss Beatrice Harraden, Anthony Hope, Mrs. Humphry Ward, and Miss Marie Corelli. At this rate the autumn will soon become the slack time; August will burn and throb with a six-shilling activity; publishers' clerks will form a union; and the Rt. Hon. W.F.D. Smith, M.P., who has always opposed an eight hours day, will bring in a Bill for an eight ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... week at Ikpe in fulfilment of her promise, she returned to Odoro Ikpe to hold the first Sabbath service. A play was being enacted in the town, and scores of naked young men and women were dancing to the compelling throb of the drum. But some Ikpe and Ndot lads came to support the service, and their presence helped the local sympathisers to come forward. It was very simple; she said it would have seemed babyish to Europeans, but it was an epoch to the natives. Another meeting was held in the afternoon; ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... was not I, was not going to be I, but T. K. Nupton; and we had a rather heated argument, in the thick of which it suddenly seemed to me that Soames saw he was in the wrong: he had quite physically cowered. But I wondered why—and now I guessed with a cold throb just why—he stared so past me. The bringer of that "inevitable ending" ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm

... minutes later when the Count von Hetzler, crouching back in the shadow of the square and waiting for the return of Clodoche, heard a dull, whirring sound that was unmistakably the purr of a motor throb through the stillness, and, leaning forward, saw a limousine whirl up out of the darkness, cut across the square, and like a flash dash off westward. Yet in the brief instant it took to go past the place where he waited there was time for him ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... matter how well I might love her nor how great the sacrifice in carrying out these God-given principles. And I here pledge myself from this course never to be shaken while a single pulsation of my heart shall continue to throb for Liberty." With this idea Malinda appeared to be well pleased, and with a smile she looked me in the face and said, "I have long entertained the same views, and this has been one of the greatest reasons why I have not felt inclined to enter the married state while a slave; ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb

... end, it does not seem as if mere vanity could linger in my soul. And you know you have always said, dearest, that I had none. I know I have always wondered unspeakably that you could find pleasure in my face, except occasionally, when I have felt, as it were, a great sudden glow and throb of love quicken and heat it under your gaze; then, as I have looked up in your eyes, I have sometimes had a flash of consciousness of a transfiguration in the very flesh of my face, just as I have a sense of rapturous strength sometimes ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... noticeable phenomena connected with opium-eating is the burden of life resting back upon the heart, which deliberately pulsates the moments of existence, as if the most momentous issues depended upon each separate throb. But this very reflux of sensibility will produce great effects at the surface, which are purely negative. This latter class of effects Homer has indicated with considerable accuracy, in the ninth Odyssey, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... greyness of a modern horizon. But signs are not awanting that the breath of the older heroism is beginning to stir men's breasts, and that the passion for justice and for liberty, which thrilled through the veins of the world's greatest in the past, and woke our pulses to responsive throb, has not yet died wholly out of the hearts of men. Still the quest of the Holy Grail exercises its deathless fascination, but the seekers no longer raise eyes to heaven, nor search over land and sea, for they know that it waits them in the suffering ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... went through a course of training before she left Boston. From the moment she landed you could see that her foot was on her native heath. She inhaled the fog with a sense of intoxication that the east winds of New England had never given her, and a great throb of patriotism swelled in her breast when she first met the Princess of Wales in ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... flame, like a burning azalea. He was not a man who intended to let his sentiments carry him away from the serious interests of his future, yet, as he looked upon Myrtle Hazard, his heart gave one throb which made him feel in every pulse that this way a woman who in her own right, simply as a woman, could challenge the homage of the proudest young man of her time. He hardly knew till this moment how much of passion mingled with other and calmer motives of ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... very soundly this night, for the monotonous throb-throb of the engine's great pulse and the churning rush of the screw not only wooed us to slumber, but seemed to ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... none of these things. He had work waiting to his hand. A hunger was upon him to feel his pulse beating to the throb of steel on stone. From the road he made a sweep of a drive up to the building. The neighbours looked open-mouthed at the work for the days it went on. "Well, that finishes Martin Cosgrave anyway," ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly

... of my own dignity. And I stood above the river, torn between desire to rush back and wounded pride, that bade me stick it out. Over the plains came the shout of returning plunderers. I could hear the throb, throb of galloping hoofs beating nearer and nearer over the turf, and reflected that I might make the danger from returning Bois-Brules the occasion ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... which usually give evidence of the existence of that tender passion. No blush lit up her snowy cheek, or flushed her lily neck, as it does the cheek and neck of maidens of the earth when pressed to the enraptured bosoms of those they love. No tear bedewed her eye, no trembling seized her frame, no throb of rapture lifted the snowy mantle that hid her bosom. Her body was bent slightly forward, her snowy lips were parted like a water-lily, about to unfold itself to the face of day, and her arms were extended as if they would press to her heart, all ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... a round, harvest moon was beginning to rise, flecking the shadowy waters with patches of silver, and, borne to my ears upon the warm, still air, came the throb of distant violins. This served only to deepen my melancholy, reminding me that somebody or other was giving a ball to-night; and Lisbeth was there, and Mr. Selwyn was there, of course, and I—I was here—alone with the brass-bound blunderbuss, the ancient fishing-rods and the antique ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... blends with the objects on which it falls. And the hair, the light pours over it like a flood, does it not?... Ah! she breathed, I am sure that she breathed! Her breast—ah, see! Who would not fall on his knees before her? Her pulses throb. She will ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac

... Barneveld, and the men who acted with him, comprehended their age, and with slender materials were prepared to do great things. They did not look very far perhaps into futurity, but they saw the vast changes already taking place, and felt the throb of forces actually ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... With a throb of the heart, Philip realised that it must be his lady herself who drove those prancing bays. He thought over his sermon hastily.—Yes, it ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... qui nous dict tout nous saousle et nous degouste." Holofernes is an amazing example of Donatello's power. He is a really drunken man: we see it in the comatose fall of the limbs, in the drooping features, the languid inanition of the arms. The veins throb in his hands and feet: the spine has ceased to be rigid, and were it not for the support of Judith's hands buried in his hair, he would topple over inanimate. The treatment of the bronze is successful and its patina is admirable. Judith's drapery, it is true, has a restless crackling ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... sure, was any maiden's perverse heart under so little command as mine!—It gave itself away, at first, without my leave; it has been, for weeks, pressing me with its wishes; and yet now, when it should be happy itself, and make me so, it is throb, throb, throb, like a little fool! and filling me with such unseasonable misgivings, as abate the rising comforts of ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... thought of any one of the five that they would travel the vast distance without interruption. Henry, as he sat in the boat in the darkness, felt that once more they were on the verge of great events. Used so long to the life of the wilderness and its countless dangers, the sudden throb of his heart told not of fear, but rather of exultation. It was the spirit rising to meet what lay before it. The same strength of soul animated his comrades, but everyone took his resolution ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... elephants with gilded howdahs ... tigers, crocodiles, orang-utans ... pagodas and palaces ... shaven-headed priests in yellow robes ... flaming fire-trees ... the fragrance of frangipani ... green jungle and steaming tropic rivers ... white moonlight on the long white beaches ... the throb of war-drums and the tinkle ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... his ears strained to catch every sound, and hoping for the help that never came, his heart gave a joyful throb, as some one pounded noisily on the door. Almost at the same instant he felt the cold muzzle of a revolver against his head, and the ominous "click, click" was more eloquent than ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton

... Her heart gave such a throb that she could only murmur something inarticulate, while there was a hasty repressed ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... ceased to howl upon these mountains, and the panther to scream, there is nothing to be compared with it. So wild! I get up in the middle of the night to hear it. It is refreshing to the ear, and one delights to know that such wild creatures are among us. At this season Nature makes the most of every throb of life that can withstand her severity. How heartily she indorses this fox! In what bold relief stand out the lives of all walkers of the snow! The snow is a great tell-tale, and blabs as effectually as it obliterates. I go into the woods, and know all that has happened. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... spice of danger gives a fillip to business to the town whose population heard the din of the most thunderously spectacular action of the war echoing among the surrounding hills. Nancy saw the enemy beaten back. Now she was so close to the front that she felt the throb ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... spirit of the merciful, That smoothed the watery way! From the true throb of heart to heart Thou wilt not turn away; Oh! softly, wilt thou lend thine ear, When 'mid the tempest's war, The feeble voice of woman's praise ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... cheek, her lips are tremulous With secret knowing smiles. In her boudoir (Her "sulking room" I call it: did you know It means that?) I wind up the tiny clock And stand at her Prayer Window where the fields Lie listening to the crickets and the stars.... Alas, I only hear the throb of pain That echoes from ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley

... seemed a bit averse to starting at first, and, for a few seconds, Betty feared that it had suffered some damage. But suddenly it began to hum and throb, gaining in momentum quickly, as it was running free. Betty slowed it down at the throttle, and then, looking aft to see that all was clear, she slipped in the clutch that ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... warning of its coming. And it was not enough for him to be unhappy: he had to blame himself for his unhappiness, and hold an inquisition into his every word and deed, and his honesty, and take the side of other people against himself. His heart would throb in his bosom, he would struggle miserably, and he would scarcely be able to breathe.—Since the death of Antoinette, and perhaps thanks to her, thanks to the peace-giving light that issues from the beloved dead, as the light of dawn brings refreshment to the eyes and soul of ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... larks mounted and poured forth that ecstasy which no bird but the lark can translate. More amazing than the loveliness of scene, sound, and scent around him was the sense of irrestisible movement. He stopped to watch it, for it grew so rapid that he could almost detect definite pulsations. Throb followed throb every second with increasing force, and in a moment more a burning speck of gold was visible, and behold it was day! He slowly turned his ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... instance—belong to this or the other well-remembered place in the material habitation—that little white room with the window across which the heavy blossoms could beat so peevishly in the wind, with just that particular catch or throb, such a sense of teasing in it, on gusty mornings; and the early habitation thus gradually becomes a sort of material shrine or sanctuary of sentiment; a system of visible symbolism interweaves itself through all our thoughts and passions; and irresistibly, little shapes, ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... often changes a whole text intentionally. The fine description by Akenside of the Pantheon, "SEVERELY great," not being understood by the blockhead, was printed serenely great. Swift's own edition of "The City Shower," has "old ACHES throb." Aches is two syllables, but modern printers, who had lost the right pronunciation, have aches as one syllable; and then, to complete the metre, have foisted in "aches will throb." Thus what the poet and the linguist ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... began to throb. I heard heavy breathing. I tried to remember how I had been brought to this place. It seemed like the place of ... had I dreamed? Yes, I had dreamed that I had drunk much ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... I have solemn vows to pay And may not linger by the way; Saint Mary grant that cave or spring May back to peace my bosom bring, Or bid it throb no more!'" ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins

... alike for the legended deeds of heroes and gods and for the feats of her human sons in council, art, and war, is a name, to those who have felt her spell, more familiar and more dear than any of the few that mark with gold the sombre scroll of history. And still across the years we feel the throb of the glorious verse that broke in praise of his native land ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... still with fear. However the blood continued to surge through Gro's body. She pressed Soelver close to herself and through her soft clothing he felt her breast swell and throb, as if she would bore herself into his flesh. 'Soelver—I love you.'—'Gro—I love you.' Then a strange giddiness seized him as if he were rushing into her arms on a tower miles high. He breathed upon her ethereal kisses, which closed her ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... down the steeps of pine and hemlock, giant trees that had dwelt there long. A desolation came upon him. The air appeared to darken and grow cold, the wind passed, and the gorge lay very still. Rand bowed himself together, and at last, with a dull and heavy throb, his heart spoke. "What shall I do," it ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... felt anything like the sudden throb of pain that shot through him when Mrs. Godfrey said this; he grew so pale that she rose hastily, thinking the room was too ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... his whittling, and, with his chin upon his hand, whistled as he looked down at the grass at his feet. His right hand played absently with the open knife; now the edge was upward, now downward, now he half closed it, then opened it wide again. Alexia Boucheafen's breath came rapidly; one violent throb of her heart almost suffocated her; but, graceful, upright, stately, she passed the seat as though it were vacant; she did not appear to glance at the man sitting there, toying with the knife, and whistling under his breath. She passed ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford

... pulse of Time, his beating life, And righteous or unrighteous, being done, Must throb in after-throbs till Time itself Be laid in darkness, and the universe Quiver and breathe upon no ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... themselves, but it is a delusion that always wilts in an atmosphere of fact. Climb high as we like our ladder will still require to rest on the ground; and it is probable that the keenest intellectual intuition, and the most delicate throb of passion would, if analysis could be carried so far, be discovered to have its connections with the rather material affair that ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... at Linwood, for Katy had asked Morris if he might, while Morris had told her "yes," feeling his heart wound throb afresh, as he thought how hard it would be to entertain his rival. Of himself Morris could do nothing, but with the help he never sought in vain he could do all things, and so he gave orders that the best chamber should be prepared for his guest, bidding Mrs. Hull, his housekeeper, see that no ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... the fire, and drooped there. He seemed very impassive under this intelligence, but he was deeply moved by it all the same. The sense of his son's high feeling of honour gave him a keen throb of pride, and then he thought bitterly that his own ill-luck pursued ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... you not set him as guard to your prisoner?" and then, her heart smiting her for the gibe, "Miss Bidwell lets no one meddle with her milk pans, and I knew best which were last night's milk," and she went up the hall with a naughty little throb of mingled mischief and triumph, as she thought how she had outwitted him, while the unsuspecting Oliver seated himself near ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... clasping and unclasping her slim white hands. "For years and years, perhaps even more than you, John Aldous! I was born in it. And it was my life for a long time—until my father died." She paused, and he saw her struggling to subdue the quivering throb in her throat. "We were inseparable," she went on, her voice becoming suddenly strange and quiet. "He was father, mother—everything to me. It was too wonderful. Together we hunted out the mysteries and the strange things in the out-of-the-way places ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... He filled the tube with water and placed the short arm in the fire. For a moment the surface of the liquid remained quiet, and then the pipe began to quiver; a slight overflow took place, without any sign of ebullition, and then suddenly, with a throb, the whole column was forced high into the air. With a tube, the long arm of which measured two feet and the bore of which was three-eighths of an inch, he sent a jet to the height of eighteen feet. Steam is generated in the short arm and presses down the water, causing an ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen

... it seemed, to pick and choose his words. He meant to have corrected and rewritten his letter, but there was no time; so he sent it, faults and all. And his father, in reading it, felt the heart-throb that beat in his boy's generous words; and though a man not at all demonstrative, he was observed to be taken as if with a sudden cold in his head, to judge by the vigorous use of his pocket handkerchief; but all he said was conveyed in a single ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... feet as with one man, all the gentlemen stood with brimming goblets one instant extended, the next emptied to the last drop; and then the cheers rang out, swelling up the rafters, three times three, seeming to carry my soul along with them. I felt my heart expand and throb with an emotion I never knew in it before, which seemed to promise vast future capacities of pain and delight. I turned to my husband instinctively; looking for, expecting, I could not explain why, an answering fire in his eyes. This was the last moment of my illusions. From thence they began to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... and faithful sowing. As in the still mornings of summer the earliest awakened bird hesitates to utter, yet utters, his solitary pipe, timidly rippling the silence, but is not long alone, for quickly the melodious throb begins to beat in every tree-top, and soon the whole rapturous grove gushes and palpitates into song,—even so, thus to appearance alone and unsupported, begins that chant of belief which is destined ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... buildings, with the rough-hewn front of the Canadian Pacific depot prominent among them, and the air was filled with the clanging of street cars and the tolling of locomotive bells. Once or twice, however, when the throb of the traffic momentarily subsided, music rose faint and sweet from the cathedral, and Mrs. Keith, who heard the uplifted voices and knew what they sang, turned to listen. She had heard them before, through her open window in the early morning when the city was silent and ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... he, "those splendid scenes. What can there be like acting them? Ah, what a throb there is in it! The rush, the roar, the onslaught, the clanging trumpet, the wreathing smoke, and the mad horses. Dauntlessly defying danger. Ravishing fame from the teeth of the battery. See in what a great leap of the heart you spring with the forlorn ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... have been. Sometimes he forgets that the notes are living things, and tosses them about a little cruelly, as if they were a juggler's balls. They drop like stones; you are sorry for them, because they are alive. How Chopin suffers, when he plays the Preludes! He plays them without a throb; the scholar has driven out the magic; Chopin becomes a mathematician. In Brahms, in the G Minor Rhapsody, you hear much more of what Brahms meant to do; for Brahms has set strange shapes dancing, like the skeletons "in the ghosts' moonshine" ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... how often hast thou prest The torrid zone of this wild breast, Whose wrath and hate have sworn to dwell With the first sin that peopled hell; A breast whose blood's a troubled ocean, Each throb the earthquake's wild commotion! O if such clime thou canst endure Yet keep thy hue unstain'd and pure, What conquest o'er each erring thought Of that fierce realm had Agnes wrought! I had not wander'd far and wide With such an angel for my guide; ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... and devoted friend, passed away, leaving the world so much poorer for her than it was before. Just then Dr. Gresham, the hospital physician, came to the bedside, felt for the pulse which would never throb again, and sat down in silence by ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... possess themselves of everything else. But with Burke, who has true style, we have a very different experience. If we go along with Johnson or Gibbon, we are carried along by Burke. Take the finest specimen of him, for example, "The Letter to a Noble Lord." The sentences throb with the very pulse of the writer. As he kindles, the phrase glows and dilates, and we feel ourselves sharing in that warmth and expansion. At last we no longer read, we seem to hear him, so livingly is the whole man in what he writes; and when ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... oh! well I know the time would surely come When my yearning heart would turn again to my far Canadian home, Longing to look once more upon its wintry wastes of snow, And the friends whose hearts throb like mine own, ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... the riddle nature puts, Of whence and why, with theories and dreams? The crawling worm proclaims its Maker's power; The singing bird proclaims its Maker's skill; The mind of man proclaims a greater Mind, Whose will makes world, whose thoughts are living acts. Our every heart-throb speaks of present power, Preserving, recreating, day by day. Better confess how little we can know, Better with feet unshod and humble awe Approach this living Power to ask for aid." And as he spoke the devas filled the air, Unseen, unheard of men, and sweetly ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... imperious mystery of the way. Thirsty for dark, you feel the long-limbed train Throb, stretch, thrill motion, slide, pull out and sway, Strain for the far, pause, draw to strength ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke

... this day, as I may no more, The world's heart throb at my workshop door. The sun was keen, and the day was still; The township drowsed in, a haze of heat. A stir far off on the sleepy hill, The measured beat of their buoyant feet, And the lilt and thrum Of a little drum, The song they ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... devils (I can afford to pity them in their fallen state) banging away at some treasonable sugar-houses that are disobedient enough to grind cane on the other side of the river. I hear that one is at Mrs. Cain's. The sound made my heart throb. What if the fight should come off before I can walk? It takes three people to raise me whenever it is necessary for me to move; I am ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... with tea and lentils, even to the very house-top, where are administered comforting syrups and a menu that is sweetened throughout its length with the twang of lutes, the clash of cymbals, and the throb of ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... since she was watching not for daylight but for that first stirring in the streets which tells that daylight is approaching. Having neither watch nor clock the stirring was all she had to go by. When it began to rumble and creak and throb faintly in and above the town she got up ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... but he remembered his vow, and, to put himself out of temptation, he locked the door of his cell and pushed the key through the aperture under it. But he could not lock the door of his soul, and his old trouble came up again with the throb of a stronger and fresher life. Every morning when he awoke he thought of Glory. Where was she now? What had become of her by this time? He wrote on the wall the date of her disappearance from the hospital—"9th of November; Lord Mayor's Day"—and tried to keep pace in his mind ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... ocean? What seeks the tossing throng, As it wheels and whirls along? On! on! the lustres Like hellstars bicker: Let us twine in closer clusters, On! on! ever closer and quicker! How the silly things throb, throb amain! Hence all quiet! Hither riot! Peal more proudly, Squeal more loudly, Ye cymbals, ye trumpets! bedull all ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... less anticipated; yet does it present one of the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. For as the swift monster drags you deeper and deeper into the frantic shoal, you bid adieu to circumspect life and only exist in a delirious throb. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... name for what the Bible calls charity, seldom found an entrance into her heart. The creature she devoted most affection to was Scorpion. But now, as she sat in the still house, which all the time seemed to throb with a hidden intense life; when she heard in the far distance doors opening gently and stifled sobs and moans coming from more than one young throat; when she looked down at the death-like face of Flower—she really did forget herself, and rose for ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... his investigation being aided by the stillness of the night, he presently became aware that a voice was speaking within the room—deliberately, musically. The beating of his heart seemed to make his body throb to the very finger tips. He had recognized the voice to be the voice of ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... was gray. Drew heard a snap of shots, but they seemed very far away. And the leaden cold of the water crept farther up his body, turning the throb into a cramp. He tried not to cry out; for him there ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... little distance from the car-house the strikers again drew together and stood mostly in gloomy silence, their eyes ever turning toward the closed doors of the great building before them. The vast crowd waited, too, in a silence that seemed to throb and pulse with intense and bitter feeling. The strikers had stopped in the middle of the street, and around them on every side, except toward the car-house, the crowd pressed and surged like a vast human sea. There were not many ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston

... said Mr. Shubrick, smiling again, a smile that made Dolly's heart throb with its meaning. "It is my pleasure to do my Master's will. The work He has given me to do, I would ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... the beautiful gliding form, The tread that would scarcely crush a worm, And the soothing song by the winter fire Soft as the dying throb of the lyre." ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... a spectacle which will long be remembered with a throb of the heart by many. The thinned ranks of the Virginians are advancing, unmoved, into the very jaws of death. They go forward—and are annihilated. At every step death meets them. The furious fire of the enemy, on both flanks and in their front, ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... take in at once, and then he only wanted wings the sooner to arrive, not eyes to see the passing objects. Afterwards the strange soft cry of the gondoliers and the sights appealed to him; but on this first evening every throb of his being was centred upon the one moment when he should hold his beloved one ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... inextinguishable quarrel, easy to be aroused from its slumber, but as difficult to be again couched in peace. While last night I but half understood that mine enemy was in my presence, and while my faculties performed but half their duty in recalling his deceitful and hated accents, did not my heart throb in my bosom with all the agitation of a taken bird, and shall I again have to enter into a personal treaty with the man who, be his general conduct what it may, has been, the constant and unprovoked cause of my unequalled misery? Douban, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... shaped, spokeshaved on her father's premises at this inactive season of the year, regularly came and unlocked the doors in the morning, locked them in the evening, supped, leaned over their garden-gates for a whiff of evening air, and to catch any last and farthest throb of news from the outer world, which entered and expired at Little Hintock like the exhausted swell of a wave in some innermost cavern of some innermost creek of an embayed sea; yet no news interfered with the nuptial purpose at their neighbor's house. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy



Words linked to "Throb" :   thump, ache, quiver, pulsation, beat, hurting, smart, pain, heartbeat, hurt, shiver, tremble, throbbing, pound, twang



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