Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Tormentor   /tˈɔrmˌɛntər/   Listen
Tormentor

noun
1.
Someone who torments.  Synonyms: persecutor, tormenter.
2.
A flat at each side of the stage to prevent the audience from seeing into the wings.  Synonyms: teaser, tormenter.






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





"Tormentor" Quotes from Famous Books



... you may see fit to call upon me. For the present you may find this of use." He held forward between his thumb and forefinger a twenty-dollar gold piece. Aladdin groped for words, and remembered a phrase which he had heard his own father return to a tormentor. He thrust his red hands into his tight pockets, and with trembling lips ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris

... understand you, Mrs. Cheyne," she returned, with superb youthful haughtiness. "Mr. Drummond is a kind neighbor, and so is Miss Mattie. You may keep these insinuations for him, if you will." Then she would have escaped without another glance at her tormentor, but ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... Root of All Evil. The pavement was hot, but there with its bare and tender feet on the hot concrete, the sad-eyed little waif painfully moved about, peering far up into the faces of passers-by for sympathy, but all the time furtively and shrinkingly watching its tormentor. Every now and then the hairy old tramp would jerk the monkey's cord, each time giving the frail creature a violent bodily wrench from head to foot. I think that string was jerked ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... wearied, retired to his adjoining bedroom; though he listened attentively he heard no more of the enemy, and soon fell asleep. In the morning he was astonished to find something warm lying on his chest; carefully lifting up the bed-clothes, he discovered his tormentor of the preceding night quietly and snugly ensconced in a fold in the blanket, and taking advantage of the bodily warmth of his two-legged adversary. These two lay looking daggers at each other for some minutes, the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... or whirlwind. These latter would smother you, if you would let them, quicker and less respectably than a shroud of snow. Jack Frost bites mildly, preferring to do his serious work by dulling the nerves; but the Dust Devil is a cruel tormentor from first to last. You may bury your head in folds of cloth and mosquito netting, and sweat and stifle in the attempt, but he snuffs you and powders you all the same. He puffs his finest clouds in your face, and round and ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... the track between Yolanda and Sausalito out of commission," Claire found herself snapping back too eagerly at her tormentor. "We tried to make the last boat by auto, but we got stalled and missed it. We had to walk a ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... with rage and despair while she was breathlessly repeating the suave compliments that oozed from the lips of the tormentor. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... bitten to death by fleas; for a chambermaid, of a disposition naturally witty and cruel, has a dangerous power put into her hands, in the charge of blankets. The Doctor's whole soul and body are wrapt up in well-aired sheets; but the insidious Abigail, tormented by his flustering, becomes in turn the tormentor—and selecting the yellowest, dingiest, and dirtiest pair of blankets to be found throughout the whole gallery of garrets (those for years past used by long-bearded old-clothesmen Jews), with a wicked leer that would lull all suspicion asleep in a man of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... he drew back, uncertain whether to make it known that his business was with Theodore; but his fear that his tormentor would "tell the perlice" before he had the opportunity to quiet him was too strong for his caution, and he asked the captain if Theodore was ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... his dread antlers hold the hounds at bay; The chamois drags the hunstman down th' abyss, The very ox, the partner of man's toil, The sharer of his roof, that meekly bends The strength of his huge neck beneath the yoke, Springs up, if he's provoked, whets his strong horn, And tosses his tormentor ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... And in these Tikkunim, starred with mystic emblems of the Messiah's dominance, the portrait of Sabbatai appeared side by side with that of King David. At Hamburg the Jews were borne heavenwards on a wave of exultation; they snapped their fingers at the Christian tormentor, refused any longer to come to the compulsory Christian services. Their own services became pious orgies. Stately Spanish Jews, grave blue-blooded Portuguese, hitherto smacking of the Castilian hidalgo, noble seigniors like Manuel Texeira, the friend of a Queen of Sweden, erudite physicians ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... Jacques, in a quick, sententious manner, that was intended to get rid of the fair tormentor, and which, temporarily at least, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... are attached to him. The pain from the pricking of the skin by the needles is exasperating; but when the explosions of the cartridges commence the animal becomes frantic. As he makes a lunge towards one horseman, another runs a spear into him. He turns towards his last tormentor when a man on foot holds out a red flag; the bull rushes for this and is allowed to take it on his horns. The flag drops and covers the eyes of the animal so that he is at a loss what to do; it is jerked from him and the torment ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... might follow the example of many animals in destroying the infirm of their own species. Indeed, instances of this nature might be adduced among savage nations.) Sometimes, however, from an original lusus naturae, or from the influence of circumstances, a man becomes a haunter of death-beds, a tormentor of afflicted hearts, and a follower of funerals. Such an abomination now appeared before Fanshawe, and beckoned him into the cottage. He was considerably beyond the middle age, rather corpulent, with a broad, fat, tallow-complexioned countenance. ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... you grow stronger; and Frank comes in to tell you of the school, and that your old tormentor has been expelled; and you grow into a strong friendship with Frank, and you think of yourselves as a new Damon and Pythias, and that you will some day live together in a fine house, with plenty of horses, and plenty of chestnut-trees. Alas, the boy counts little on those later and ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... all,' replies the lawyer, only too happy to show off his own: and touching up the horse, put him to a quiet canter. The moment is not to be lost; the churchyard gate is at hand; Sheridan slips in, knowing that his mounted tormentor cannot follow him, and there bursts into a roar of laughter, which is joined in by Kelly, but not by the ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... from a stray newspaper, of the success of a young architect in a distant northern city, one Richard Fairfax, Jr. Uncle Noah proudly read them aloud for the hundredth time, interpolating little explanatory remarks to the turkey, who gobbled threateningly but failed to intimidate his tormentor. ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple

... therefore cannot be altered, you should not allow yourself to think that it might have been otherwise; still less, that it might have been avoided by such and such means; for reflections of this kind will only add to your distress and make it intolerable, so that you will become a tormentor to yourself—[Greek: heautontimoroumeaeos]. It is better to follow the example of King David; who, as long as his son lay on the bed of sickness, assailed Jehovah with unceasing supplications and entreaties for his recovery; but when he was dead, snapped his fingers and thought no more ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... do Irene Martin and Mabel Hanford!" burst out Paul. "It's as much on you fellows as it is on me," and he fairly glared at his tormentor. ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis

... lord—vera right," said his tormentor, bursting out into a chuckling, but most discordant laugh. "These citizen chuffs and clowns will press in amongst us, when there is but an inch of a door open. And what remedy?—Just e'en this, that as their cash gies them confidence, we should strip them of it. Flay them, my lord—singe ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... his opportunity, and, catching hold of little Jacko's tail, would haul him up the rigging after him at a great rate. Ungka would all the time keep the most perfect gravity of countenance, while poor little Jacko grinned, chattered, and twisted about in a vain endeavour to escape. The tormentor, at last, tired of what was very great fun to him and the spectators, but not at all so to the little monkey, would suddenly let him go, to the great risk of cracking his skull on deck. Ungka, having nothing which his brethren could seize in return, very ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... again I rebelled, even as the poorest worm will turn if it be sufficiently trodden upon; but that, too, was useless. My tormentor held me in a grip of steel. Worse than all, the dog's life she was leading me caused me to lose all sense of proportion. As a choice between two evils, a return to prison would have been far more endurable than this indefinite sentence of degradation ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... what led her to suspect that the governess had something to conceal, but she was perpetually putting questions most difficult for her to answer; the incitement being the pleasure of watching, from an artistic point of view, the beauty of Bluebell's ever-ready blushes while essaying to parry her tormentor's inquisitorial efforts. ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... his tormentor. "I know it's human nature to deny it; though I never could understand why; if I was engaged, the Sunday papers should ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... suggestion to put their tormentor into the pit he had heretofore digged for them. The worthy instructor of youth had of late come to see that while he was still a prime favorite with his landlady, he had, nevertheless, suffered somewhat in her estimation because of the apparent ease with which ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs

... and when our young hearts found sufficient relief to breathe out our indigination, we sat up in the bed, and with all our force, repeated a hundred times, Carnifex! Carnifex! Carnifex! executioner, tormentor. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... Tucker, very red in the face, advancing towards his tormentor, "I've stood your impudence long enough, you cad, and I won't ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... he struggled to ascend the pulpit stairs, holding hard on the banisters. His tormentor held fast by the skirts of the cloak, which went nigh to the choking of the wearer, until, as he spoke the words last mentioned, in a half-strangled voice, Mr. Holdenough dexterously slipped the string which tied it round his neck, so that the garment suddenly gave way; the soldier fell ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... to look on the Sapper Subaltern and his works as an unmitigated nuisance and a most undesirable acquaintance who drew more than a fair share of enemy fire on them) appealed to the guns to rid them of their latest tormentor. An Artillery Observing Officer spent a perilous hour or two amongst the shrapnel and snipers' bullets on top of the sandbagged wall, until he had located the minnenwerfer. Then about two minutes' telephoned talk to the Battery ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable

... reckless voices around us began to shout; and, as I stood fumbling about, mademoiselle, with a face like fire, made me a stiff bow, and was about to step back, when our chief tormentor called out: ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... with the devil, who had dragged him naked from his hut and had sought to hurl him into the torrent; but that on the very edge of the river the anchorite had found strength, by the grace of God, to overthrow the tormentor and to render him powerless; and in proof of it there was my body all covered with Satan's claw-marks by which I had ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... he should be able to establish his identity, and also to prosecute his researches respecting him with perfect facility and freedom. Franz passed the night in confused dreams respecting the two meetings he had already had with his mysterious tormentor, and in waking speculations as to what the morrow would produce. The next day must clear up every doubt; and unless his near neighbor and would-be friend, the Count of Monte Cristo, possessed the ring of Gyges, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... I am self-tormentor enough to distrust myself, even now. God knows I have concealed nothing from you; and yet—Am I not selfishly thinking of my own happiness, Stella, when I ought to be thinking only of you? You know, my angel, with what a life you must associate yourself if ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... Helen's weakness, if weakness it can be called, and in her efforts to frighten her tormentor she did not look again at Miss Hazelton until startled by a gasping cry and heavy fall. Marian had fainted, and Helen was just raising her head from the floor to her lap when Morris appeared, relieving her of her burden, of whom he took charge until she showed signs of life. ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... brave British Naval officer, who was killed in Africa when the boy is very young. The mother also dies, and Martin is left an orphan, to be brought up by his father's brother. He has a horrible time in this family, and Aunt Matilda is his chief tormentor. Eventually he is sent to a cheap boarding school with a prospectus in no way matched by reality. Again he has a horrible time, for several years, but is befriended by another boy, Tom. One year, on Guy Fawkes' Day, they perpetrate a misdemeanour ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... again in error, Barbara," retorted her tormentor, who, like most wits, cherished a jest more than the feelings of those she jested with; "I condescend ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... would have kicked this cynical being out of the studio, with his infernal innuendoes. But there was something supernormal about him. He dominated both the artist and the wife, and they were completely under his spell, struggle as they would to break it. Olga shrank from the cruelty of their tormentor. ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien

... know that archbishop—well,' interrupted my young tormentor. 'I sometimes think, if it hadn't been for that archbishop, we should never perhaps have ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... have we here, villain?" and clutching at his victim, he raised the cane. Whereupon, with a serene and cheerful countenance, up rose the mighty form of Amyas Leigh, a head and shoulders above his tormentor, and that slate descended on the bald coxcomb of Sir Vindex Brimblecombe, with so shrewd a blow that slate and pate cracked at the same instant, and the poor pedagogue dropped to the floor, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... author, an orator, an artist, a man of science, a general, or of any who held the world's admiring gaze—for while they stood in the sunlight, he felt cast in the shade. So the guest Envy, warmed and nourished in his heart, proved a tormentor. She gave ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur

... poetry, which we intend criticising in our next volume, was not specially interesting or elevated. He was a spoiled child, a small self-tormentor,—full to bursting with petty spites, mean animosities, and unfounded jealousies. While he sought, with the fury of a pampered slave, to trample on those authors that were beneath him in rank or in popularity, he could on all occasions ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... happy hours, happy moments. The rest was a void. She had read that a man of letters must lose many days, to work well in one. Much more must a Sappho or a sibyl. The capacity of pleasure was balanced by the capacity of pain. 'If I had wist!—' she writes, 'I am a worse self-tormentor than Rousseau, and all my riches are fuel to the fire. My beautiful lore, like the tropic clime, hatches scorpions to sting me. There is a verse, which Annie of Lochroyan sings about her ring, that torments my memory, 'tis so true ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... me, my prophecy was fulfilled shortly after, for the day was rough enough to produce uncomfortable sensations in those who were not old sailors like myself. My tormentor was ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... from Tempest that morning, and any inclination to rebel or mutiny was suppressed. We contented ourselves with glaring at our tormentor, and denying him the excuse he probably desired of prolonging the agony. My impression is that Mr Jarman was never so happy as when he realised that he was absolute master of the situation. The Roman emperors were not in it ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... the people were, when suddenly he heard a wild cry, and saw a figure rush straight towards him. It was a woman's figure, and she appeared quite old. Like lightning, the thought flashed through him that this was his old tormentor, the hag; and with a gasp he started back, and was about to run. But the other was too quick for him, and David felt himself seized by his dreaded enemy. This dreaded enemy then behaved in a frantic way, hugging him and uttering inarticulate words. David struggled ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... in the belfry. Quasimodo was always there, nevertheless; what, then, had happened to him? Was it that the shame and despair of the pillory still lingered in the bottom of his heart, that the lashes of his tormentor's whip reverberated unendingly in his soul, and that the sadness of such treatment had wholly extinguished in him even his passion for the bells? or was it that Marie had a rival in the heart of the bellringer of Notre-Dame, and that the great bell and her fourteen sisters were neglected for something ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... apparitions of devils. Troubled with fears of eternal fire and the malignant demons who fed it in the regions of despair, he says that he often wished either that there was no hell, or that he had been born a devil himself, that he might be a tormentor rather than one ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... it makes him deeper.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} Supposing we learn to set our pride, our scorn, our strength of will against it, and thus resemble the Indian who, however cruelly he may be tortured, considers himself revenged on his tormentor by the bitterness of his own tongue. Supposing we withdraw from pain into nonentity, into the deaf, dumb, and rigid sphere of self-surrender, self-forgetfulness, self-effacement: one is another person when one leaves these protracted and dangerous exercises in the art of ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.

... chained for life to a criminal, a drunkard, a lunatic, an idle vagrant, or a person whose religious faith was contrary to her own. Imagine being married to a liar, a borrower, a mischief maker, a teaser or tormentor of children and animals, or even simply to a bore! Conceive yourself tied for life to one of the perfectly "faithful" husbands who are sentenced to a month's imprisonment occasionally for idly leaving their wives in childbirth without food, fire, or attendance! What ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... Israel! that men like these have power to persecute thy children for their faith, and do it in thy name! And speak of mercy! Thou hast but given me another incentive for endurance," she continued, more calmly addressing her tormentor. "If salvation be denied to us, and granted thee, I would refuse it with my dying breath; such ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... And still all these states, provinces, cities, citizens, and peasants demand of me money and support, succor and alms, although they know that I have nothing, for they give me nothing. Money! money! That word has been my tormentor and enemy ever since I began to rule; sleeping and waking that word has pursued me. From all officers, from all subalterns I have heard it, as often as they came near me, and now comes my dear son, too, afflicting and harassing his poor, unfortunate ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... Take me out! It gives me the toothache!" wailed the Troll, but the Bride's mother was a wise woman, and determined that now she had caught their tormentor ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry

... trouble enough, and that he had therefore no need to give them more; but that young people were in danger of being too happy, of having too little trouble, and that it was necessary therefore that he should be their tormentor. But even to the young he could be kind on occasions, very kind; and if the young showed a disposition to meet his views, to receive his sayings as oracles, and always to consult his will, he would even caress and commend them. But he could receive no measured ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... Sofya Ivanovna was the daughter of an obscure deacon, and was left from childhood an orphan without relations. She grew up in the house of a general's widow, a wealthy old lady of good position, who was at once her benefactress and tormentor. I do not know the details, but I have only heard that the orphan girl, a meek and gentle creature, was once cut down from a halter in which she was hanging from a nail in the loft, so terrible were her sufferings from the caprice and everlasting nagging of this old woman, who was ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... show them. She would tend to her husband and her home. She fancied she could learn to run that house, and run it well! And forthwith she descended to the kitchen and told the then reigning tormentor that her wages would be paid until the end of the week, but that her services ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter

... length the fever gave way to careful attendance, and my Arab patients and Florian were also in a fair way towards recovery. The plagues of Egypt were upon us; the common house-flies were in billions, in addition to the cattle-tormentor. Our donkeys would not graze, but stood day and night in the dense smoke of fires, made of sticks and green grass, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... described as "men without knowledge of God or use of reason,"—a pious design, held doubtless in full sincerity by the royal profligate, now, in his decline, a fervent champion of the Faith and a strenuous tormentor of heretics. The machinery of conversion was of a character somewhat questionable, since Cartier and Roberval were empowered to ransack the prisons for thieves, robbers, and other malefactors, to complete their crews and strengthen the colony. "Whereas," says the King, "we have undertaken this voyage ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... from Baltimore county; disagreement between him and his so-called master was the cause of his flight. Elias Sneveley, a farmer, known on the Arabella Creek Place as a "hard swearer," an "old bachelor," and a common tormentor of all around him, was the name of the man that Harry said he fled from. Not willing to be run over at the pleasure of Sneveley, on two occasions just before his escape serious encounters had arisen between ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... his tormentor; "you're too well educated. Some people does, though. I suppose them that has seen them does. Some people thinks that murdered men walk. P'raps some people thinks the man as ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade

... who saw her son's doom drawing nearer and nearer, made the mealtimes and every moment which she spent with her a perfect hell. Frau Lerch continued to urge her, and now advised her to persuade the Emperor to rid her of the old tormentor. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the supposed secret from the Shah, who once more denied all knowledge of it, employing the strongest figure of denial. "If," said the helpless old man, "you think I have any concealed treasures, they must be within me. Rip open my bowels, and satisfy yourself." The tormentor then tried cajolery and promises, but they were equally futile. "God protect you, who has laid me aside," said the fallen Monarch. "I ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene

... have saved her. She gave poor Ida no rest, and her persecution had culminated this afternoon; she began to "call Ida's mother names," the result of which was that the assailed one suddenly snatched up her slate, and, in an uncontrollable fit of passion, struck her tormentor a blow with it ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... with thrilling tenderness or reproach on the friends who had deserted them, while the nurses went from bed to bed, incarnate images of despair, neglect, and death. I gave gold to my luckless companion; I recommended her to the care of the attendants; I then hastened away; while the tormentor, the imagination, busied itself in picturing my own loved ones, stretched on such beds, attended thus. The country afforded no such mass of horrors; solitary wretches died in the open fields; and I have found a survivor in a vacant village, contending at once with famine and disease; but the ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... stage, which allows thirty or thirty-two feet between tormentors. The proscenium arch may be much greater, but the average vaudeville stage will set the tormentors about thirty feet apart. All vaudeville stage settings are made back of the tormentor line. ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... he fidgeted, moving so often that his tormentor demurely asked him if he were sitting on a thistle ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... this would have satisfied his tormentor for one day; but Barker was in a mischievous mood, so he again came up to Eric, and calling out, "Who'll have a game at football?" again snatched the cap, and gave it a kick; Eric tried to recover it, but every time he came up Barker gave it a ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... for England. So long a term of freedom from the Colonel's depredations (as Charles fondly imagined—but I will not anticipate) had done my brother-in-law's health and spirits a world of good; he was so lively and cheerful that he began to fancy his tormentor must have succumbed to yellow fever, then raging in New Orleans, or eaten himself ill, as we nearly did ourselves, on a generous mixture of clam-chowder, terrapin, soft-shelled crabs, Jersey peaches, canvas-backed ducks, Catawba wine, winter ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... Celia, who had been his constant counselor and tormentor, about the time when she was beginning to feel a little shy and long-legged, in her short skirts, who had, in a romantic sympathy with his tastes, opposed his going into a "store" as a clerk, which seemed to the boy at one ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... back to Penrith. The Master and the hounds and Crocker must go all the way. Hampstead would turn off at Pooley Bridge. But still there were four miles, during which he would be subjected to his tormentor. ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... Mademoiselle de la Valliere has to reproach herself with. The actual sin is sending poor Bragelonne to the wars; and to wars in which death is so very likely to be met with." Louise pressed her hand over her icy brow. "And if he dies," continued her pitiless tormentor, "you will have killed him. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of you place the fire against his foot?" demanded Glenn, in something like anger. But before he could receive an answer, the young chief, who had whirled round furiously, and cast a fierce look at his tormentor, relaxing his knit brows into an expression of contempt, very deliberately took hold of Joe's ear, and turning on his heel like a pivot, forced him to make many circles round him ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... there gently but firmly handed him into the passage. The wretched youth flew off to proclaim his sorrows to his confederates, and vow vengeance all over Tadpole and Guinea-pig-land against his tormentor and the new boy, who was the ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... counter-attack a superior, is filled, and naturally filled, with a sense of burning indignation. He feels he has had a cruel wrong done to him and is in no mood to be converted to better courses. That to which his mind reacts at once is some form of vengeance, some way of getting even with his tormentor. The words that burn or rankle or corrode are not the words to stimulate. No doubt Socrates said that he was the gadfly of the State and stung that noble animal into action, but what may be good for a sluggish old coach-horse is not necessarily ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... strange bird Richardson's skua, or Arctic skua, or lesser skua, or, officially, Stercorarius crepidatus, or, most unofficially, in the vernacular, "boatswain," or "man-o'-war," or "gull-tormentor." Apparently you could take your choice what you called him. But he did not belong to Mr. Richardson really. He belonged to nobody, only to himself, to the wind and the rain, that seemed to have begot ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... himself in check, biting his lips over his enforced impotence. But Carew's final threat wrung speech from him, for he saw speculation in Ruth's eyes, as she measured her tormentor. The dreadful thought occurred to Martin, "Ruth will barter herself to save ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... nothin' good in it, I'll be bound," went on the tormentor. "If you had, you wouldn't be so mighty anxious to get rid of it. Come now, long's you're intendin' to heave it into the water on my side of the wall, s'pose you let me ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... horses, which were towing a canal-boat. The first horse was lazy, and the boy got angry and struck him several times over the head with his whip. The Riverdale boy shouted across to him, begging him not to be so cruel; but the boy paid no attention. Suddenly the horse turned, seized his tormentor by the shoulder, and pushed him into the canal. The water was not deep, and the boy, after floundering about for a few seconds, came out dripping with mud and filth, and sat down on the tow path, and looked at the horse with such a comical expression, that the Riverdale boy had to stuff ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders

... communing with the serpent. A conversation was sustained, in which, as it seemed, the hidden monster bore a part, though unintelligibly to the listeners, and inaudible except in a hiss. Singular as it may appear, the sufferer had now contracted a sort of affection for his tormentor, mingled, however, with the intensest loathing and horror. Nor were such discordant emotions incompatible. Each, on the contrary, imparted strength and poignancy to its opposite. Horrible love—horrible antipathy—embracing one ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... their sagacity. If they have confidence in the sportsman for whom they are finding, they will advance to the very heel of the elephant, slap him on the quarter, and convert his timidity into anger, till he turns upon his tormentor and exposes his front to receive the bullet which ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... determined to appear at ease, and so talked on the one engrossing idea of her life; the last conundrum in fancy work, the last fashionable incongruity in the blending of colours. And poor, victimized Lionel longed to breathe in Vaura's refreshing breadth of thought; on his tormentor pausing to recover breath, it was not as balm to a wound to hear Sir ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... one drove his parent all over a tree with his supplications. Higher and higher would go the persecuted, with his tormentor scrambling, and half flying after, till the elder absolutely flew away, much ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... even dignity. The concessions wrung from the sultan by the French furnished the Russian government with the occasion it had long sought. An especial envoy was sent to demand the restitution of all the privileges of which the Greeks had been deprived. The vacillating sultan yielded to his new tormentor. Negotiations were set on foot by the ministers who represented the great powers; and France was induced by the influence of England to adopt a concessive tone, and to withdraw from the insolent and hostile position she had assumed. The ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... all over the country! Sympathy, however, she had, if that would do her any good. Mysie and Fly came on each side of Ivinghoe, assuring him, in low eager voices, of the utter nonsense of the charge, and explaining ardently; and Jasper, with one bound, laid hold of the tormentor, dragged him down, and, holding ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... himself, swinging and swaying, knotting and relaxing himself with strangest curves and convolutions, always, however, leaving at least one coil around his victim. At last he undid himself entirely, and crept from the bed. Then first the lord chamberlain discovered that his tormentor had bent and twisted the bedstead, legs and canopy and all, so about him that he was shut in a silver cage out of which it was impossible for him to find a way. Once more, thinking his enemy was gone, he began to shout for help. But the instant he opened his mouth his keeper darted at ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald

... the compass of its five acts she runs the wild and weary gamut from crowned love to crowned despair. It is a new interpretation, and a remarkable one—an interpretation that is tinged with the blight of our inquisitive and mournful age: self-consciousness, that terrible tormentor in her soul, sits for ever in judgment upon every impulse of the heart of Adrienne, and makes of pain a stinging poison, and of pleasure but a poor potentiality. Her death-scene is singular and awful—awful in its physical adherence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... explosion, possibly connected with the contrivance, caused such confusion among the guards that Hugh escaped to scare me with his news. Stationed near the gate in this disguise, I ventured to enter the courtyard, and saw—saw—the TORMENTOR! the torturer, the hideous, masked minister of agony, led towards the chambers in which our hapless messenger is examined by the ruthless tyrants. Gloucester, the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... may be called the best, or which the worst, in this instance, for our tormentor appears to be as much better than ourselves in some particulars, as we are better than he in others. If the humouring is to come from our honest captain, it will be some such humouring as the spoiled child gets from a capricious parent ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... more furious, heaved up the broken pickaxe to smite his tormentor dead—which, indeed, he might have done had not Edie, suddenly pointing with his hand, exclaimed in a stern voice, "Do ye think that heaven and earth will suffer ye to murder an auld man that gate—a man that might be your father? Look behind ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... the principal, turning and glaring at this latest polite tormentor, "will you be good enough to remember that I am not extremely interested in ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock

... bold and unwomanly, does it not? But my uncle was such a tyrant, and I had no appeal. I am an orphan, Sir Everard. My father and mother have been dead since my earliest recollection, and this uncle, my sole earthly relative, has been my guardian and tormentor. I can not tell you how cruelly he has treated me. I have been immured in a desolate old country-house, without friends or companions of my own age or sex, and left to drag on a useless and aimless life. My poor father left me a scant inheritance; but, such ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... massive solid balls of the Monitor were far more effective. Nearly every one struck the broad sides of the Merrimac, breaking her armor in several places, and shattering the wood backing behind it. Many times the Merrimac tried to ram her small antagonist, and thus to rid herself of this teasing tormentor, but the active "cheese-box" slipped agilely out of her way. The Monitor in turn tried to disable the screw of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... his skill and prowess spread far through the wilderness. Single handed he would not hesitate in the depths of the forest to attack war parties of half a dozen, and while suffering heavily themselves they could never catch their daring tormentor. These tales even spread across the Ohio to the Indian villages, where they told of a blond and giant white youth in the South who was the spirit of death, whom no runner could overtake, whom no bullet could slay and who raged against the red man ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Edward Putnam, who, as the record says, "gave in his relate," which undoubtedly was a statement of his having seen the afflicted in their sufferings, and heard them accuse Rebecca Nurse as their tormentor. Hathorne said, "Is this true, Goody Nurse?" She denied that she had ever hurt them or any one else in her life. Hathorne repeated, "You see these accuse you: is it true?" She answered, "No." He again put the question, "Are you an innocent person relating to this witchcraft?" ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... themselves and with yells of rage bounded from their camp in search of the one who had caused so much disturbance. It had all happened so quickly that they had not succeeded in getting a good look at their tormentor. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... had entered the coach hurriedly, so glad to escape from the highwayman that he did not consider how poor a figure he had cut in the sight of the girl. Fearful that his tormentor might not yet have done with him, he sank back in his corner again. Barbara was sitting forward ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner

... teased her tormentor, running a saucy eye over her boyish garb. "And why not with so fair a Rosalind for a subject?" She broke off to quote in her pretty, uncertain English, acquired at a convent in the United States, where she ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... you—one of life or death to me, and, like the God you believe in, you have left it unanswered. You have no pity on the sufferings you cause me! If your God be cruel, why should you be cruel too? Is not one tormentor enough in your universe? If there be a future let us go on together to find it. If there be not, let us yet enjoy what of life may be enjoyed. My ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... sand, and laying them on his shoulders, travelled along the wilderness. A person of his acquaintance meeting him, asked him what he meant, and made an offer of easing him of his burden; but the saint made no other reply than this: "I am tormenting my tormentor." He returned home in the evening, much fatigued in body, but freed from the temptation. Palladius informs us, that St. Macarius, desiring to enjoy more perfectly the sweets of heavenly contemplation, at least for five days without ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... touched his mother earth, and therefore, lifting him up in those mightiest of arms, the hero squeezed the breath out of him. By-and-by he came to Mount Caucasus, where he found the chained Prometheus, and, aiming an arrow at the eagle, killed the tormentor, and set the Titan free. In return, Prometheus gave him much good counsel, and indeed seems to have gone with him to Atlas, who, according to this story, was still able to move, in spite of the petrifaction by Hercules' grandfather. Atlas undertook to go to his ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Greeley would finish his sentence and ring his bell before he would leave his room. The sentence complete, he places the forefinger of his right hand at the end of the word last written, seizes the handle of his pen in his teeth, and looks his tormentor full in the face. It is a glance of inquiry, and the questioner, intuitively conscious of this fact, repeats his interrogation. Mr. Greeley divines the question before it is finished, and answers it pithily and quickly. The pen is then snatched from his mouth, dexterously ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... Lammle, with certain white dints coming and going in his palpitating nose, looked as if some tormenting imp were pinching it. Fledgeby, watching him with a twitch in his mean face which did duty there for a smile, looked very like the tormentor who was pinching. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... many cases been for so long the tormentor," said Madame de la Baudraye guilelessly, "that the crime would sometimes seem almost excusable if ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... phrases was this dull tormentor teasing me. I was ashamed to listen to him, yet dared not to ask a single question or interrupt his vile insinuations. I was alone on the promenade; the poisoned arrow of suspicion had entered my heart. ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... if he were even going to live in England; if he would let himself be himself; but public opinion," sobbed the poor self-tormentor—"It has been his God, Sabina, to be a leader of taste and fashion—admired and complete—the Crichton of Newport and Brooklyn. And he could not bear scorn, the loss of society. Why should he bear it for me? If he had been one of the abolitionist ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... sneering tormentor in the face, "if so be that I am your Hereditary Justicer, it will be long ere a sentence so monstrous shall be carried out by me. I will not slay the innocent, nor pour out the blood of a virgin saint, for a million deaths. You can torture me with all your hellish engines, and you will find that ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... 11. He is to be the pleader and advocate of the Poet, to influence the Audience in his favor, and against his adversaries; and not to explain the plot of the Play. Colman has the following observation: "It is impossible not to regret that there are not above ten lines of the Self-Tormentor preserved among the Fragments of Menander. We are so deeply interested by what we see of that character in Terence, that one can not but be curious to inquire in what manner the Greek Poet sustained it through five Acts. The Roman author, though he has adopted the title of ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... moment, the same odious creature who had been my former tormentor, joined them. Addressing Lord Orville with great respect, he said, "I beg pardon, my Lord,-if I was-as I fear might be the case-rather too severe in my censure of the lady who is honoured with your protection-but, my Lord, ill-breeding is ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... to hear. He attacked especially the couples dancing, describing their physical advantages or defects with a coarseness of expression which made his companions laugh. The girls blushed and tears came to their eyes; the young men ground their teeth and raged in silence. Their tormentor's eyes wandered slowly round the room, sparing nobody; Christophe saw them moving towards himself. He seized his mug, and clenched his fist on the table and waited, determined to throw the liquor at his head on the first insult. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... case with very much warmth, and represented it in so lively a manner, that I see both his torment and tormentor with great perspicuity. This order of Platonic ladies are to be dealt with in a peculiar manner from all the rest of the sex. Flattery is the general way, and the way in this case; but it is not to be done ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... tormentor, Alan Fairford had time to rally his recollections, which, in the irritation of his spirits, had nearly escaped him, and to prepare himself far a task, the successful discharge or failure in which must, he was aware, have the deepest influence ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... Orion!" they all shouted, as loud as though she were deaf. Then the usually placable girl, holding her hand over her ear, with the other hit her tormentor such a smack on her thick lips that it resounded, while she shrieked ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... with the protection accorded him, seemed to take delight in making Pal's life miserable. He would tag the dog around the clearing until Pal, in desperation, would turn upon him with a savage growl. Then his tormentor would take to a tree, or his pole, or even the roof of the cabin, there to wait until the dog's anger ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer

... be determined, went back to their slumbers. When all was quiet, the Devil reappeared, but this time in his most hideous shape. Half dead with cold and terror, the discomfited caricaturist stood shivering at his column, while his tormentor made unmercifully merry with him; twitting him with his amorous overtures, mocking his stammered prayers, and irreverently suggesting an appeal for aid to the beauty he so loved to delineate. The penitent wretch at last took the advice thus jeeringly given—when lo! the ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... Whether she would have succeeded is doubtful, had not an hour or two later brought another knock from the umbrella, and driven all thoughts of eating from her mind. In grim silence she waited until her tormentor was gone, and then wondering if it was not time for the train she consulted her watch. But alas! 'twas only four; the cars did not leave until six; and so another weary hour went by. At the end of that time, however, thinking ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... hear it, for I thought, from the way you rolled your eyes at him last night and this morning, that you had lost your heart to him already, and I thought it a pity to show your heart to a man so plainly," gibed her tormentor, viciously. ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

... third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... and extensive domains, and how miserably I had been disappointed. On the contrary, I had experienced nothing but chagrin, disgust, and terror; and I now consoled myself with the hope that I should henceforth shake myself free of the chains of my great tormentor, and for that privilege was I willing to encounter any earthly distress. I could not help perceiving that I was now on a path which was likely to lead me into a species of distress hitherto unknown, and hardly dreamed of by me, and that was total destitution. For all the riches ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... broad-sword, swinging it with a vigorous and well-aimed effect, while Bennett, with lighter weapon, pricked, stabbed, and cut. Never inactive, the latter sought to aggravate and embitter. Greeley, on the contrary, intent upon forcing the Administration to change its policy, ignored his tormentor, until exasperation, like the gathering steam in a geyser, drove him into further action. In this prolonged controversy the Tribune invariably referred to its adversary as "the Herald," but in the Herald, "Greeley," "old Greeley," "poor Greeley," "Mars Greeley," "poor ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... hard to shake the jocular tormentor off, but he kept his place on the bridge as if he had grown to it. She made a snatch at him, and he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... Lord Admiral's horse, as she spoke, so sharp a cut with her riding whip as to make the big brute rear in sudden surprise, and almost unhorse its rider, while an unchecked laugh came from its fair tormentor. ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks

... I done?" he asked, lifting his big light-green eyes, full of tears, to his tormentor, and trying to ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... really proposed to darling Peggy, then? and we are to have a wedding shortly?" continued his tormentor. "And pray which did look the most foolish of the two?—or was it a drawn-game, as we sometimes say ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... his burden, the hawk made all speed to escape. At the farther shore the female king-bird desisted from the pursuit, and hurried back to her nest. But the avenging wrath of the male was not so easily pacified. Finding the tormentor still at his head, the hawk remembered the security of the upper air, and began to mount in sharp spirals. The king-bird pursued till, seen from the earth, he seemed no bigger than a bee dancing over the hawk's back. Then he disappeared altogether; and ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... His tormentor did not answer. Probably his mind was on his next line of inquiry. But Mr. Jeffrey did not take his silence with the calmness he had shown prior to the last attack. As no word came from his unwelcome guest, he paused in his ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... cried I, leaping up like one who should suddenly perceive an acquaintance, "is this you, Mr. Dubois? Why, who would have dreamed of encountering you so far from home?" As I spoke, I shook hands with the Major heartily; and turning to our tormentor, "O, sir, you may be perfectly reassured! This is a very honest fellow, a late neighbour of mine ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... guard were reported at the General Court on June 16, 1662. One belligerent son of Mars, as he sat in the meeting-house, threw lumps of lime—perhaps from the plastered chinks in the log wall—at a fellow-warrior, who in turn, very naturally, kicked his tormentor with much agility and force. There must have ensued quite a free fight all around in the meeting-house, for "Mrs. Goodyear's boy had his head broke that day in meeting, on account of which a woman said she doubted not the wrath of God was upon us." And well might she think so, for ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... could keep their countenances, for the eye of the speaker had pointed and sharpened his words; and William, very red in the face, was understood to mumble, as soon as mumbling was possible, that "he wouldn't laugh unless he had a mind to," and a threat to "do something" to his tormentor. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... prancing round with bird cages and baskets and carts and pigs, for all I know, in her ears, as the other girls do, and won't she look like a goose?" asked one tormentor, tweaking a curl that strayed out ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... practised towards y^e Christians when they were compelled & drawne to sacrifice to idoles; for many indured sundrie kinds of tormente, often rackings, & dismembering of their joynts; confiscating of ther goods; some bereaved of their native soyle; others departed this life under y^e hands of y^e tormentor; and some died in banishm[e]te, & never saw ther ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... Lieutenant dropped his feet from the stirrups and leaned close to the brute's trembling, angry head. At last in one supreme effort the beast threw himself straight into the air and fell backwards, with the savage purpose of crushing his tormentor ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... suddenly vanished from my tormentor's face and manner. His eyes were ablaze with mingled triumph and hate. "You thought so, you poor fool!" he hissed out at me across the table. "Bah! you were a fool! ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... this time there was no need of his darting at the tormentor. Six boys had promptly caught up Hen—two by the legs, two at the body and two more at the shoulders. Rushing Hen to the nearest tree, they promptly and soundly spanked him by the very simple method of holding his legs apart and swinging his body ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock

... and when the others saw his flashing and indignant countenance and noticed his tight-clinched fists, the roar of laughter that greeted his downfall was checked half way, and a sudden silence fell upon them. They all expected him to fly at his tormentor like a young tiger, and Damase evidently expected it too, for he stepped back a little, and his grinning face sobered as he ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley

... by the contemplation of the result to which it inevitably led, to think at all about that imp of darkness and his ludicrous fulminations. Astraea occupied brain and heart, and left no room for my tormentor. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... was right, for his people had been slaves among the very earliest Dutch settlers, and had never "lived South" at all. He was now busily getting one of the boats ready to push off; but his white tormentor went at him ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... have behaved with more exquisite gentleness than this! The maiden's hand was cruelly burnt, and her tormentor was adding insult to injury by heaping false and abominable names upon her: and the worst thing she had to say to him was simply to ask whether he wished to torture ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt

... fashion of the time, he took with him his knife and fork. After he was seated at the dinner table he was subjected to annoyance similar to that which teased Uncle Toby—namely, the hovering of a bee about his head. To relieve himself from the tiny tormentor, he laid down his knife and fork, and attempted to beat off the insect with his hands. It soon flew out at the window; but behold! the laird's knife and fork had disappeared. They were searched for all over ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... determined, when he reached Stockholm, to return to his mother, and try to be a better boy. Peaks, in the little steamer, had come upon him like a ghost. He had expected never again to see the ship, or his particular tormentor; and to have the latter appear to him in such an extraordinary manner was very impressive, to say the least. He realized that he must submit; but this thought, like that of resistance ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... answered; followed it with another, which, after a little hesitation, was likewise answered; then asked a third, the ready answer to which involved such a flagrant contradiction of the first, that the poor sorrowful weaver burst into a laugh of delight at the discomfiture of his tormentor. After some stammering, and a confused attempt to recover the line of argument, the would-be partizan of Deity roared out, 'The fool hath said in his heart there is no God;' and with this triumphant discharge of his swivel, turned and ran down the ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... attention. Then, drawing deep from the very bottom of her lungs, she spat the mass full in his face. The muscles of his face twitched painfully but he held his eyes to the front and stared past his tormentor, seeing other things. ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson

... followed John Penhallow in later years remembered most distinctly the half hour of astonishing relief from pain. As his senses one by one went off guard, he seemed to himself to be watching with increase of ease the departure of some material tormentor. In after years he recalled with far less readiness the days of varied torment which required more and more morphia. Why I know not, the remembrance of pain as time goes by is far less permanent than that of relief or of an ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... rather suffer immediate death than endure one year's imprisonment in such a hideous place; and cursing the hour of his birth, and the moment on which he departed from his own country. "For my own part," said his tormentor, in a hypocritical tone, "I was obliged to swallow the bitter pill of making submission to the prince, who, as I had not presumed to strike him, received acknowledgments, in consequence of which I shall be this day set at liberty; and there is even one expedient left for ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... been broiling bones for O'Grady below, he had been grilling Furlong for himself above. In one of the pauses of the storm, the victim ventured to suggest to his tormentor that all the mischief that had arisen might have been avoided, if O'Grady had met him at the village, as he requested of him in one of his letters. O'Grady denied all knowledge of such a request, and ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... a coward and an incompetent; the son, always cautiously distant from the scene of hostilities, was the tormentor of those whom the fortunes of war, and the arms of brave men threw ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... head with a small club, which he is doing in a way that means business. Suddenly his mother comes out of the kitchen, and after soundly boxing his ears, sends him howling into the house, much to the relief of the poor hen who has just fallen over with exhaustion and fright, but upon finding her tormentor gone is soon herself again. Presently Olive hears Dan at the gate, and comes to the front door to meet him and tell him that dinner is almost ready, remarking that he cannot guess what she has for dessert. ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell

... good as that of any man!" agreed his charge who was more his master and tormentor. "But if we halt here while you make the maps of Cosmo in the sand, we will miss the rest of the maids, for all my looking shows me no others ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... remonstrances. They seemed to be bent on oppressing and impoverishing the country, and drinking the last drop of its heart's blood! I beheld everywhere the same heart-rending spectacle that I witnessed at the capital. Every city and fortress has its systematic tormentor in some governor or commander, distinguished for arrogance and cruelty. The distress is unutterable, and yet the people hope for speedy deliverance. The eyes of all are turning with tears, it is true, but with love and hope, to Memel, the heart of the Prussian monarchy. All the hopes ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... the mind of the barefooted boy. Having suppressed his laughter, he tickled the sunburnt neck again. Once more the hand rose automatically, and once more the boy was almost strangled with delight. The dreamer was hard to awaken, but his tormentor had not yet exhausted his resources. No genuine boy is ever without that fundamental necessity of childhood, a pin, and finding one somewhere about his clothing, he thrust it into the leg of the plowman. ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... Cytherea; I had gained one whose beauty had departed, whose utterance was complaint, whose mind was shallow, and who drank brandy every day. The revulsion of feeling was terrible. Providence, whom I had just thanked, seemed a mocking tormentor laughing at me. I felt like ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... and mentioned the times, which agreed exactly with those of the sultana's delivery. Abou Neeut then questioned the midwife, who confessed the imposition and wickedness of the sisters, whom he left to be punished by the pangs of their own consciences, convinced that envy is its own severest tormentor. The young princes were acknowledged; and the good Abou Neeut had the satisfaction of seeing them grow up to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... gone through too much to give up now." He pleaded fast, his hands shaking in a quiver of fear and eagerness as he stretched them out in entreaty and his linked chain shaking with them. Promises, pledges, commands, orders, arguments poured from him. His tormentor checked him ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... aright? She had submitted to blood-letting once to gratify an old family physician, who insisted upon the remedy; and she felt almost brave enough to endure the operation again, if it would only kill time and satisfy her tormentor. But to cut into her brain! Merciful God! What should she do? She could not escape, for he watched her with cat-like vigilance. Scream she dare not, for so did the other frightened victim. She must try to ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... hate to see a good fellow wronged; because I know that a man is better than a moneybag. Why, that girl would marry you in a minute if you was rich. But because you're not she will strike for one of them rose-water snobs on Algonquin Avenue." Sam writhed, and his wheedling tormentor continued, watching him like a ferret. "Perhaps she has struck for one of them already—perhaps—oh, I can't say what may have happened. I hate the world when I see such doin's. I hate the heartless shams ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... Russians under General Brusiloff. His great offensive is a source of offence to the Austrians, who have good reason to complain that the "steam-roller" is exceeding the speed limit. Or to change the metaphor, the bear and his tormentor have ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... all pure irony, intended but to torment him; at least so the robber seemed to understand it. For, instead of accepting it in a friendly sense, he turned savagely on his tormentor, hissing out: ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... been Sir Marmaduke's relentless tormentor ever since he had reached man's estate. His father, Sir Jeremy de Chavasse, had been poor before him. The younger son of that Earl of Northallerton who cut such a brilliant figure at the Court of Queen Elizabeth, Jeremy had married Mistress Spanton of Acol Court, who ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... was amazing, and as the woman saw the sweet store swiftly disappearing, her fear began to be tempered with indignation. But when her outraged frugality led her to delay the dole, her tormentor came at the window so savagely that she made all haste to supply him, and fell to wondering helplessly what she should do when the sugar was ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... time and tune which I at first attributed to champagne, but which a closer survey proved to be due to the fact that the band was being conducted, surprising as it may seem, by my brother-in-law, who had kindly undertaken to wield the baton, while the Chief Tormentor (or whatever his proper title may have been) charged himself anew at the refreshment counter. A popping of corks in the supper-room apprised me of the fact that my guests were doing their best, at my expense, to make the Excise Returns ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... day they tried it while Rudolph was standing by, holding the hand of the squaw who had him in charge. No sooner did the usual scream escape Kitty's lips than, quick as thought, the boy broke from the woman's grasp, and, rushing upon his sister's tormentor, laid the little savage in the dust and pummeled him well. Instead of resenting this, the Indians seemed to admire the pluck of the young pale-face, and he rose in their favor at once. Especially did the old squaw, as Indian women are called, applaud him. ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge

... ridiculous this New Year's Eve with a lot of bonny but impossible resolutions. I know that you are playing with me just as a cat plays with a mouse; yet even the most piteous mousekin sometimes causes his tormentor surprise or disappointment by getting under a bureau or behind the stove, where, for the moment, she cannot paw him. Every now and then, with a little luck, I shall pull off just such a scurry into temporary immortality. It may come by reading Dickens or by seeing a sunset, ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley



Words linked to "Tormentor" :   cuss, tantaliser, oppressor, flat, tormenter, blighter, pesterer, pest, torment, gadfly, harasser, tantalizer, witch-hunter



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com