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Battle   Listen
noun
Battle  n.  
1.
A general action, fight, or encounter, in which all the divisions of an army are or may be engaged; an engagement; a combat.
2.
A struggle; a contest; as, the battle of life. "The whole intellectual battle that had at its center the best poem of the best poet of that day."
3.
A division of an army; a battalion. (Obs.) "The king divided his army into three battles." "The cavalry, by way of distinction, was called the battle, and on it alone depended the fate of every action."
4.
The main body, as distinct from the van and rear; battalia. (Obs.) Note: Battle is used adjectively or as the first part of a self-explaining compound; as, battle brand, a "brand" or sword used in battle; battle cry; battlefield; battle ground; battle array; battle song.
Battle piece, a painting, or a musical composition, representing a battle.
Battle royal.
(a)
A fight between several gamecocks, where the one that stands longest is the victor.
(b)
A contest with fists or cudgels in which more than two are engaged; a mêlée.
Drawn battle, one in which neither party gains the victory.
To give battle, to attack an enemy.
To join battle, to meet the attack; to engage in battle.
Pitched battle, one in which the armies are previously drawn up in form, with a regular disposition of the forces.
Wager of battle. See under Wager, n.
Synonyms: Conflict; encounter; contest; action. Battle, Combat, Fight, Engagement. These words agree in denoting a close encounter between contending parties. Fight is a word of less dignity than the others. Except in poetry, it is more naturally applied to the encounter of a few individuals, and more commonly an accidental one; as, a street fight. A combat is a close encounter, whether between few or many, and is usually premeditated. A battle is commonly more general and prolonged. An engagement supposes large numbers on each side, engaged or intermingled in the conflict.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Battle" Quotes from Famous Books



... Oh! baneful cause, oh! fatal morn, Accursed to ages yet unborn! The sons against their father stood, The parent shed his children's blood. Yet, when the rage of battle ceased, The victor's soul was not appeased: The naked and forlorn must feel Devouring flames, and ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... when I met Craig at the laboratory. He had made a trip to Montclair again, where his stay had been protracted because Maloney was there and he wished to avoid him. He had brought back the camera, and had had another talk with O'Connor, at which he had mapped out a plan of battle. ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... something of your father. Here's been a famous action fought, and a matter of a thousand men killed and wounded. I've only just heard about it. Nelson has licked the French on the coast of Egypt" (Ben here referred to the battle of the Nile), "and the Oudacious, the ship on board of which your father was boatswain's mate, was in the action. Now, you see, the names of the killed will be sent into the office here, that their relations may receive the pay and prize-money due to them; so now, Jack, perhaps ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... from the sinking sun were streaking the wall of the whitewashed room with slender, forklike fingers. Jacques and the three men were knotted in talk beside the ruddy fire glow. Claire RenA(C) braced herself with a sharp sigh. No soldier ever went into battle with a more ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... a nail, the shoe was lost; For want of the shoe, the horse was lost; For want of the horse, the rider was lost; For want of the rider, the battle was lost; For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost; And all for the want ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... treatment of crowds in motion that Zola chiefly excelled; there is nothing finer in literature than the march of the strikers in Germinal or the charges of the troops in La Debacle. Contrast him with such a master of prose as George Meredith, and we see how immensely strong the battle scenes in La Debacle are when compared with those in Vittoria; it is here that his method of piling detail on detail and horror on horror is most effectual. "To make his characters swarm," said Mr. Henry James in a critical ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... our sympathy with those associations which make up what may be called the spiritual character of the spot. If indifferent to those associations, we should see only hedgerows and ploughed land in the battle-field of Bannockburn; and the traveller would but look on a dreary waste, whether he stood amidst the piles of the Druid on Salisbury plain, or trod his bewildered way over the broad expanse on which the Chaldaean first learned ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... do that," replied the captain. "He will probably come in a good-sized vessel, and I don't think they are the kind of men for open battle. They are midnight sneaks and assassins. Now, I advise all of you to go and get something to eat. It would be better for us not to try to do any cooking, and ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... Flotilla, under the command of Captain James U. Farie, in Champion, took station astern of the battle fleet for the night. At 0.30 a.m. on Thursday, 1st June, a large vessel crossed the rear of the flotilla at high speed. She passed close to Petard and Turbulent, switched on searchlights and opened a heavy fire, which disabled Turbulent. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... sound of the vowel, and was promptly corrected by Marie Louise. "I said it was my great-grandfather, not my niece," said the storyteller sharply. "Well, onct upon a time he was engaged in a war— the Communism war, I think it was. In the heat of battle one day he cut off a great general's head, just like that. Goodness, don't jump so, Rosemary! It rolled down a hill, bumpety-bump, swearing all the way. You see, he was a very great general and was allowed to swear all he pleased. He got his ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... Bishop of Caesarea, who asserts that it was communicated to him by Constantine himself, who confirmed it with an oath. The story is this: Constantine, whose mind was wavering between Christianity and paganism, was on the eve of a great battle. Knowing that Maxentius, his enemy, was seeking the aid of magic and supernatural rites, and remembering also that his father, who had been well disposed to the Christians, had always prospered, while their persecutors failed, he determined to pray to Christ. While engaged with such ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester

... a man felt the joy of battle it was he. He heeded not the number of his adversaries nor the steel that flashed forth against him. Slashing, cutting, parrying, thrusting, he hurled himself in upon them. They were carried back ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes

... prepared for inventors, viz., to make the fortune of some unscrupulous clown while they themselves die in poverty. In "The Porter's Son" he is an aspiring artist, full of the fire of genius, and he wins his princess by conquering that many-headed ogre with which every self-made man has to battle—the world's envy, and malice, and contempt for a lowly origin. It is easy to multiply examples, but ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... continued battle of ideas will ultimately lead to agreement, and eventuate into policy is an optimistic belief which is not always supported by the facts. Sometimes, indeed, it does, as in the case of woman suffrage. Sometimes, however, it ends in the resort to force. And frequently not even the ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis

... all the passengers looked at him. "At eighteen I enlisted as a private for the famous campaign of 1813; but I was present at only one battle, that of Hanau, where I was promoted sergeant-major. In France, at Montereau, I won the rank of sub-lieutenant, and was decorated by,—there are no informers here, ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac

... bandage and his eyes shining. He had had a fight with other blacks, Malaita boys; many against one, and one with a knife: "I KNICKED 'EM DOWN, three four!" he cried; and had himself to be taken to the doctor's and bandaged. Next day, he could not work, glory of battle swelled too high in his threadpaper breast; he had made a one-stringed harp for Austin, borrowed it, came to Fanny's room, and sang war-songs and danced a war dance in honour of his victory. And it appears, by subsequent advices, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Englishman had the end in view, you see, whereas the lesser brain of the Spaniard would have sacrificed the battle for a personal whim, having lost sight, in his vanity, of the importance ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn

... was surveying the prisoners, through the guard surrounding them, he spied one of his neighbors, who only a short time before the battle had been acting with the Whigs, but had been persuaded by some of his Tory acquaintances to join the king's troops. Upon seeing him Major Forney exclaimed, "is that you, Simon?" The reply quickly came back, "Yes, it is, Abram, and I beg you ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... him—doubtless there had been many a good cure of souls among past generations of Benoixes, professing an older faith than his. In moments of clear vision that came to him he battled, as all thinkers must battle, with a great discouragement, a sense of helplessness that was almost terrifying. Of what use man's puny human endeavors against the forces of predestination arrayed against him—the forces ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... earnest, there follows an intestine war in the conscience. The terrors of God raise up a terrible party within a man's self, and that is the bitter remembrance of his sins. These are mustered and set in order in battle-array against a man, and every one of these, as they are thought upon, strike a dart into his heart. They shoot an arrow dipped in the wrath of God, the poison whereof drinketh up his spirit, Job vi. 4. Though the most part of souls have now a dead calm, and are asleep like Saul in ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... the same, though the object proposed by it be very different. They all go to war together, therefore, and everyone does as well as he can. Among the Tartars, even the women have been frequently known to engage in battle. If they conquer, whatever belongs to the hostile tribe is the recompence of the victory; but if they are vanquished, all is lost; and not only their herds and flocks, but their women and children become the booty of the conqueror. Even ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... Henry's misfortunes were at an end, and when the Battle of Evesham was won, the Tower was perpetually unfortunate. A body of rebels surrounded it, and in the defence were present a great number of Jews, who had fled from the fighting in the city only to find themselves pressed for service in defence of the fortress. From that moment they make no further ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc

... Alvord, fighting his first battle, clenched his teeth and lowered his front sight. John Slaughter had prefaced his advice by killing one of the bandits; he supplemented it by putting a bullet through a head that bobbed above the rocks. And when the other two members of the posse ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... hand lay still and white. Its work on earth was done, and the brother and sister were left alone. Courageous and loving, they had both struggled on. Her end was attained, but he was at the beginning of the steady conflict before him. How would he bear himself in the battle? If she could only know whether his surroundings would be as pleasant and homelike as her own, and his heart as full of hope and quiet trust! Would he be borne safely through the privations and temptations of his university ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker

... us. While waiting for slack water, in which to lift their heavy nets from the bed of the bay, the Chinese had all gone to sleep below. We were elated, and our plan of battle was ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London

... of the survivors from the battle with the Boodah had wirelessed: on that commonplace bulletin at the War Office the news ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... left stranded or drowned. But these are not the men whom England wants to fight her battles. It has often been pointed out of late that many of those who during this century have borne the brunt of the battle in the intellectual warfare in England, have not been trained at our Universities, while others who have been at Oxford and Cambridge, and have distinguished themselves in after life, have openly declared that they attended hardly any lectures in college, or that they derived no benefit ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... be a man jack of us with a neck to call his own to-day. Now, we snap our fingers at the best of them; there isn't a cruiser that can live with the thirty knots we can show; and there isn't a line-of-battle ship swimming that could get the better of us while our engines are moving. It's a big claim you think, but wait until you see us in action, then you'll know how much we owe to the little man in rags, but who has one of the clearest brains that ever ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... were in tune. This was a signal for preparation, that the complaisant Mrs. Cole, who understood life, took for her cue of disappearing; no longer so fit for personal service herself, and content with having settled the order of battle, she left us the field, to fight it ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... After the battle of Tallapoosa, General Jackson returned with his victorious army to Fort Williams; but, determined to give his enemy no opportunity of retrieving the misfortune that had befallen him, he recommenced operations immediately afterward. On the 7th of April, 1814, he again set ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... 1389, when Mircea the Old was Prince of Wallachia, that the united Balkan nations attempted for the first time to check Ottoman invasion. The battle of Kosovo, however, was lost, and Mircea had to consent to pay tribute to the Turks. For a short space after the battle of Rovine (1398), where Mircea defeated an invading Turkish army, the country had peace, until Turkish victories under ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... instantaneous and abundant liberation of gaseous matter by the intense heat resulting from the action of the combustibles upon the saltpetre. It is not known by whom it was first applied to the purposes of war, but it is certain that it was used early in the fourteenth century. Cannons were used at the battle of Cressy, in 1346; small guns, or muskets, were introduced into the Spanish ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers

... A suggestion for the appropriate arrangement of these mounds may be found in the map of the battle-field annexed to the volume by Captain R.K. Beecham, ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... and valiant son. Theseus, however, felt that he was in the right, and therefore would not give up his resolution. But he assured his father that he did not intend to be eaten up, unresistingly, like a sheep, and that, if the Minotaur devoured him, it should not be without a battle for his dinner. And finally, since he could not help it, King Aegeus consented to let him go. So a vessel was got ready, and rigged with black sails; and Theseus, with six other young men, and seven tender and beautiful damsels, came down to the harbor to embark. ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the country, and no sooner bad the clover sprung up in the new clearings than the Southdown ram got hoven upon it and died. The two remaining rams, not having been accustomed to much high living since their arrival at Newera Ellia, got pugnacious upon the clover, and in a pitched battle the Leicester ram killed the Cotswold, and remained solus. An epidemic appeared among the cattle, and twenty-six fine bullocks died within a few days; five Australian horses died during the first year, and everything seemed to be going into the next world ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... die. If you prayed your hardest to be saved and did nothing, you would certainly be disappointed. God has given us the means of saving life—science and medicine are His way of helping us through doctors—even then we fail if the patient has no strength to battle with disease. That is how I feel," she added loyally. "We don't blame those we love—so don't ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... In the centre of the camp, amid a number of banners fluttering in the breeze, was erected a large canopy of gay-coloured cloth, beneath which was a throne, richly ornamented with gold and silver. A flight of steps led to it, along which were ranged a body of guards armed with battle-axes and spears. The Inca sat on his throne, dressed in the ancient costume of his ancestors, which I have before described; and officers of various ranks kept continually coming up to receive orders. As they approached, they bowed reverentially ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... become so serious, that Mrs. Trevelyan, haughty and stiff-necked as she was, did not dare to abstain from showing the letter to her sister. She had no other counsellor, at any rate, till Lady Milborough came, and the weight of the battle was too great for her own unaided spirit. The letter had been written late at night, as was shown by the precision of the date, and had been brought to her early in the morning. At first she had determined to ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... Lindsay, had been killed in an accident. The shock had proved nearly fatal to his young wife. The next day Camilla Clark's baby was born dead, and the poor mother hovered for weeks between life and death. Slowly, very slowly, life won the battle, and Camilla came back from the valley of the shadow. But she was still an invalid, and would be so for a ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... banks of oars, and her crew were the pick of all the warmen of Denmark. Sharp and fierce was the fight at this side, and great was the carnage. While Kolbiorn and others of Olaf's stem defenders kept up an incessant battle with their javelins and swords, King Olaf and his archers shot their arrows high in air so that they fell in thick rain upon the Danish decks. Yet the Danes, and the Swedes from the rear, were not slow to retaliate. Although they found it impossible to ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... are pronounced in every so-called civilized nation today. Behind every battle-line in Europe you may see the priests of the Babylonian Fire-god with their bronze images and their ancient incantations; you may see magic spells being wrought, magic standards sanctified, magic bread eaten and magic wine drunk, fetishes blessed and hoodoos lifted, eternity ransacked ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... roaring water in my ears. I could hear nothing else. Tracks were everywhere, and when I came to the first open place I was thrilled. The grizzly had plunged off a sandy bar into the water, and there he had fought the hounds. Signs of that battle were easy to read. I saw where his huge tracks, still wet, led up the opposite ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... of valor had been performed by Louis in Brittany earlier in his career, which of course reached the ears of Anne, who like every woman of spirit admired a hero, when lo! misfortune of misfortunes, he was taken prisoner at the battle of St. Aubin, where he fought bravely at the head of his infantry. This capture must have been a sad blow to the hopes of the young Duke of Orleans, as Maximilian, Duke of Austria, promptly stepped in and claimed the hand of the Breton heiress; ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther

... it seemed that I did not have a sword, but that I, too, looked upon the battle from a place where there were no flames. I ran ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... Government first felt that Virginia was to be the battle-ground and decided to lash its fortunes to hers amid the black billows that were surging around it, an army was already in the field; partially armed, already somewhat proficient in drill and learning, by ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... sweat, listening to this demoniac struggle; and it was with a feeling of relief that he heard Strom open the window and drive the devils out over the roofs. The diver fought the last part of the battle with a certain humor. He addressed the corner of the room in a wheedling, flattering tone. "Come, you sweet, pretty little devil! What a white skin you have—Strom would so like to stroke you a little! No, you ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... with his crops. So he'd been moving heaven and earth to get the steel to come his way. He'd pulled wires and interviewed members and guaranteed a water-tank supply and promised a right of way and made use of his old engineering friends—until his battle was won. And his last fight had been against the liar who'd sent in false reports about his district. But that was over now, and Casa Grande will no longer be the jumping-off place of civilization, the dot on the wilderness. It will be on the time-tables and the mail-routes, and I know my Dinky-Dunk ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer

... Diana rose, to battle, her cheeks crimson. "It asks a braver man than you to compel my obedience," she told him. "La!" she fumed, "I'll swear that had Mr. Wilding overheard what you have said to your sister, you would have little ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... very good to be there in the days that followed the death of Jenks. True, it was now nearer to the seat of war than it had been for years, and air-raids began to be common, but in a sense the sound of the guns fitted in with his mood. So great a battle was being fought within him that the world could not in any case have seemed wholly at peace, and yet in the quiet fields, or sauntering of an afternoon by the river, he found it easier than at Havre to ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... to the chapel, and there saw, displayed as trophies, two of our own dear old English flags. I have seen many a banner hung up in token of past victory, and many a flag taken on the field of battle mouldering by degrees into dust on some chapel's wall—but they have not been the flags of England. Till this day I had never seen our own colors in any position but one of self-assertion and independent power. From the tone used by the gentleman who showed them to me, I could gather ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... disadvantage towards the more self-restrained speakers (all older than himself) who rose, one after another, to combat his views. More than once he had lost his temper, and had been obliged to make his apologies. More than once he had been indebted to the ready help of Rufus, who had taken part in the battle of words, with the generous purpose of covering his retreat. "No!" he thought to himself, with bitter humility, "I'm not fit for public discussions. If they put me into Parliament tomorrow, I should only get called to order and ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... her and exterminated her forces; after which they dealt similarly with Haniyasu. This chapter of history illustrates the important part taken by women in affairs of State at that epoch, and incidentally confirms the fact that armour was worn by men in battle. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... and Sumobor, with the king of Bela; and each king led on his own troops: and the Assyrians made war upon them; and, dividing their army into four parts, fought against them. Now every part of the army had its own commander; and when the battle was joined, the Assyrians were conquerors, and imposed a tribute on the kings of the Sodomites, who submitted to this slavery twelve years; and so long they continued to pay their tribute: but on the thirteenth year they rebelled, and then the army of the Assyrians came upon them, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... gradually becomes contagious; they are men of the sword, and their honor is at stake. Many of them join the princes at Coblentz, and subsequently do battle against France in the belief that they are contending ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... ice, a whole was in the ice imediately in their Course which might easily have been avoided by going around, the foremost man went on and was lost the others wer draged around by the party- in a battle with the Crow Indians who inhabit the Coul Noir or black mountain out of 22 of this society 18 was Killed, the remaining four was draged off by their Party Those men are likely fellows the Sit together Camp & Dance together- This Society is in imitation of ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... saints call upon to do battle for king and country have their nature after the manner of their deeds," came a clear voice from the fleur-de-lis, that clothed itself in armor, and flashed from under a helmet the keen, dark eyes and firm, beardless ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... air, White as the falling snow, their margins tinged With gold and crimson hues; their shadows fall Upon the flowery meads and sunny slopes, Soft as the shadows of an angel's wing. When the rough battle of the day is done, And evening's peace falls gently on the heart, I bound away across the noisy years, Unto the utmost verge of Memory's land, Where earth and sky in dreamy distance meet, And Memory dim with dark oblivion joins; Where woke the first remembered sounds that fell Upon ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... of the youth of Ireland, and strengthening gradually to the perfect day, as a surer check to any intellectual or spiritual tyranny which may threaten this island, than the laws of princes or the swords of emperors. We fought and won our battle even in the Middle Ages: should we doubt the issue of another conflict with ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... moment so improperly performed that our existing civilisation is such a hot-bed of physical degeneracy, pauperism, and crime. One thing at least is certain, that crime will never permanently decrease till the material conditions of existence are such that women will not be called upon to fight the battle of life as men are, but will be able to concentrate their influence on the nurture and education of the young, after having themselves been educated mainly with a view to that great end. European society ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison

... sure it never answers at least not in most cases and in ours it would not I am convinced; but I had a pretty hard battle about it I assure ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... wherefore, if we will do the will of our high Creator, whose will it is that it pass to nothing, we must help to consume it to nothing. Gold is more vile than men: men die in thousands and ten thousands, yea, many times in hundred thousands, in one battle. If then the best husband has been so liberal of his best handiwork, to what end should we make much of a glittering excrement, or doubt to spend at a banquet as many pounds as he spends men at a battle? Methinks I honour Geta, the Roman emperor, for a brave-minded ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... and relinquished much of his territory which he thought he could not defend; rightly judging it more hurtful to his reputation to lose territory after an attempt to defend it, than to abandon it to the enemy as something he cared little to retain. So, likewise, after the battle of Cannae, when their affairs were at their worst, the Romans refused aid to many subject and protected States, charging them to defend themselves as best they could. And this is a better course ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... his arrival in Johannesburg, the Organisation of which he is the mainspring has set before itself the task of giving a helping hand to the very poor, those who are without friends, and those who have fallen in the battle of life." ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... The soldier before a battle knows that if he shirks and pretends to be ill, he may escape danger and make sure of his life. There are very few men, indeed, if it comes to that, who would not sooner die ten times over than so dishonour themselves. Men of high moral nature carry out the same principle ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... every one when that vessel reached its destination. The battle of the Alma had just been fought, and the wounded were being brought in ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... concentration of the party and definition of his own foremost place in it which had looked so close and probable a few weeks before. She supposed he had been exhausting himself, too, over that shocking Midland strike. The Clarion had been throwing itself into the battle of the men with a monstrous violence, for which she had several times ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... view showed the horse as if it were galloping wildly. It was 374 feet long, and covered an acre of land, and was supposed to have been cut out originally by the army of King Alfred to celebrate his great victory over the Danes at the Battle of Ashdown, about three miles distant. It was, however, held by some people that the origin of the horse was far beyond the time of King Alfred, as the shape strongly resembled the image of the horse found on early British ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... eager-face, the adoration of his eyes. He remembered how on that far-off night he had realized the hopelessness of combating his love, how he had shrugged his shoulders and relinquished the struggle. And the battle had been his even then—a bitter victory more ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... picture was painted, an important illustration published, an important book written, an important criticism made, that it did not lead to battle. Few of the Young Men of the Nineties accomplished all the triumphant things they thought they could, but the one thing they never failed to do and to let the world know they were doing was to fight, and they loved nothing better—coats ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... they will show you, they say, that Genghis Khan, Kouli Khan, and Tamerlane destroyed ten thousand times more people in battle than this man did. Good God! have they run mad? Have they lost their senses in their guilt? Did they ever expect that we meant to compare this man to Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, or Kouli Khan?—to compare a clerk at a bureau, to compare a fraudulent bullock-contractor, (for we could show that his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... trials of the body's strength and the soul's patient endurance,—these he bore with the superb buoyancy of spirit which denotes the hero. Who was it that caught up the colors, and rushed forward with them into the thick of the battle, after the fifth man who attempted it had been shot down? Not that village loafer, who used to go about the streets dressed so shabbily? Yes, the same. He fell, covered with wounds and glory. The rusty, and seemingly useless instrument we saw hang so ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... apostle carried away by his passion, ever ready to fight and vanquish for the pure glory of the Blessed Virgin. In his black cloak with its large hood, and his broad-brimmed flossy hat, he shone resplendently with the perpetual ardour of battle. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... very far from new, but it has not been the fashion to say it lately. It is not the whole of the truth. Noble rivers have their own natural defects of swamp and mudbank. Sometimes his tides ran sluggishly, as in 'The Battle of Life,' for example, which has always seemed to me, at least, a most mawkish and unreal book. The pure stream of 'The Carol,' which washes the heart of a man, runs thin in 'The Chimes,' runs thinner in 'The Haunted ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray

... perspiration, or going into the cold air immediately after sitting in a warm room, are among the various means by which the health of thousands is constantly ruined; and more die of colds than are killed by plagues, or slain in battle. ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... a comradeship born of fellowship in privation, danger, and suffering. I could hardly restrain my tears as we finally parted with our torn and tattered colors, the staff of one of which had been shot away in my hands. We had fought under their silken folds on three battle-fields, upon which we had left one-third of our number killed and wounded, including a colonel and three line officers and upward of seventy-five men killed and two hundred and fifteen wounded. Out of our regiment ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock

... and embankments. An imitation of Trajan's column in Rome, is 142 feet in height, and thirteen feet in diameter. It is constructed of masonry, encrusted with plates of bronze, forming a spiral band nearly 300 yards in length, on which are represented the "battle scenes of Napoleon during his campaign of 1805, and down to the battle of Austerlitz. The figures are three feet in height and many of them are portraits. The metal was obtained by melting down 1,200 Russian and Austrian cannons. At the top is a statue of Napoleon ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... pretty generally the fact in such cases, a capacity of reading again is required in the person as well as one of being read again in the book. The late Mr. Mark Pattison was not a friend of mine, and we once had a pitched battle; nor was he in any case given to borrow other people's expressions. But he was a critic, if he was anything, and he once did me the honour to repeat verbatim—whether consciously or not I cannot say, but in the very periodical where ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... from the country to "carry on." My friend told me that when she had returned to Paris in haste from the country, at the beginning of the war, there was not a taxi available, as they were all being used to rush the soldiers out to the battle of the Marne. ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... at the boy's struggling face. Decidedly, the battle was to the strong, and he was not sorry to be on the side of the legions. But Draper's pain was as awkward as a material obstacle, as something that one ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... captain, and be on the alert to obey signals," cautioned Mr. Farnum. "We've got to thread our way into a perfect hornet's nest of war craft. A dozen battle ships, several cruisers and a flotilla of torpedo boats ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham

... as we may, a martial strain will urge a man into the front rank of battle sooner than an argument, and a fine anthem excite his devotion more certainly ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... shaking portentous head, "fire I'm prepared for; a earthquake I could endoor; battle, murder, and sudden death I could abide; poverty is me lot, Mr. Geoffrey, an' hardship is me portion, an' for all sich am I dooly prepared, sich things bein' nacheral; but ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... of the war, Philip Gibbs and his companions seemed to posses the knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, following armies across northern France in the vain hope of being on hand to witness battle. He never really succeeded during the first year, aside from joining a British volunteer ambulance service on the Ypres front in late 1914. But while other reporters unashamedly spruced up their reporting, ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... now the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud Whence the thunderbolt will fall Long and loud, 45 Four galleons drew away From the Spanish fleet that day, And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay, And the battle-thunder broke from them all. ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... notes of hand being paid already, and Midwinter being willing to pay the other two when they fall due, my present position with the old wretch is as independent a one as I could desire. I always get the better of her when it comes to a downright battle between us, and find her wonderfully civil and obliging the moment I have made her feel that mine is the strongest will of the two. In my present situation, she might be of use to me in various ways, if I could secure her assistance, without ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... of the battle that took place outside of Estcourt while that village was shut off, it was believed that Boer women had come to help their lords to smash the "verdomde rooineks." Those who are well acquainted with the Boers suggest that their ladies ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people, and for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength TO THEM THAT TURN THE BATTLE ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith

... us the seas were dashing up some tremendous rocks, but directly ahead there was an opening between the combers that hurled themselves aloft, roaring and impotent, to fall back into seething masses of spume. There was a suggestion of tremendous walls over which voices were shrieking in the battle of unending centuries between the moving turmoil and the stolid ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... he measures about the waist; only think of the gigantic involutions of his intestines, where they lie in him like great cables and hawsers coiled away in the subterranean orlop-deck of a line-of-battle-ship. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... limited if thought needful; although I should suppose it is not possible in our circumstances to obtain too much; yet the sum to be risked in any one bottom may very properly not exceed a certain amount in a line of battle ship or frigate, and a smaller in any one merchant vessel. Should Congress think proper to authorise these measures, as I hope they will, the private journals will be most proper to insert the proceedings in; as a want of secrecy ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... themselves. I show them the variety of their doctrines, their virulent contests and various factions, instead of that union they boast of. I have never been attacked a second time in any of the towns where I have resided, and perhaps shall never be so again after my last battle, which was with an old priest, a learned man, particularly esteemed as a mathematician, and who has a head and heart as warm as poor Whiston's. When I first came hither, he visited me every day, and talked of me everywhere with such violent praise, that, had we been ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... leaves for the war. They make their way across the mountains and into Gaul (France), where battles ensue, in which they distinguish themselves, and are brought to the notice of the Generals, whom they had rescued from personal disaster during the battle. So Marcus' military ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn

... carved figures for the heads of ships, according to the names given to them. And now he had carved Holger Danske, who stood there erect and proud, with his long beard, holding in one hand his broad battle-axe, while with the other he leaned on the Danish arms. The old grandfather told the little boy a great deal about Danish men and women who had distinguished themselves in olden times, so that he fancied ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... he lacked the conceit which could have convinced him that they merely marked a secret struggle for mastery, a desperate effort to crush an inclination to surrender before the temptation of the moment. It was a battle for deliverance being fought silently behind a mask of smiles, an exchange of sparkling commonplace; yet ever beneath this surface play she was breathing a fervent prayer that he would go away of his own volition and leave her free. Far more clearly than he, the woman recognized the utter ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... whom in default of an heir male the wide possessions of the Middleton family were divided. This gentleman, who bears the name of Biddulph, is Lord Lieutenant of the county of Denbigh, and notwithstanding his war-breathing name, which is Gothic, and signifies Wolf of Battle, is a person of highly amiable disposition, and one who takes great interest in the propagation of the ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... the realm of its conquests, and chants its successes. It founds a kingdom, it constructs a system of nature. But the typhon rises from the yawning gulf, and the Titans beat upon the gates of the new empire. A battle of giants begins. You hear the tumultuous efforts of the powers of chaos. Life triumphs at last, but the victory is not final, and through all the intoxication of it there is a certain note of terror and bewilderment. The soul of Beethoven was a tormented soul. The passion and the ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the brave in some awful battles in Burmah, or somewhere like that. Indeed, he got so wounded with cutting in to carry out the men as they dropped—it was what they call a skirmish, I think, not a proper battle where they have ambulances and carrying people and everything ready, I suppose—that he's had to leave off being a ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... his own mental disturbance. He felt as he used to feel on the eve of a battle that all knew was coming off, there on the other side of the world. He was then with an army which he was not at all sure was in the right; but when he sat on a hill-top in the night, looking at the flickering ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... was evidently taking on a few airs for he seemed quite exasperated and ready to battle against such aspersions. Instantly his face became radiant as the noonday sun, and he burst forth in ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... pursuing the other had come suddenly in sight of the whole fleet, which made him turn about and make his way to Puerto Rico before the English should cut him off. From the prisoners taken from the sunken vessel he had learned that the English fleet consisted of 6 line-of-battle ships of 600 to 800 tons each, and about 20 others of different sizes, with launches for landing troops, 3,000 infantry, 1,500 mariners, all well armed and provided with artillery, bound direct for Puerto Rico under the command of Sir Francis ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... curious; moreover they are loyal, as samurai.... Of the inner apartments—a very clean sweep has been made. Deign to leave matters for the present to this Saisuke." With approval the old man examined the handiwork of his lord. It was most thorough, even to the eye of this remnant of the battle field. Then he went to work. The bodies he conveyed to the side of the artificial mound in the garden. Digging out part of the hill, here he buried them; forced in, dove-tailed together, in the smallest space; the old man grumbling at the ground they occupied. Then with water he washed out the ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... not arisen to chastise their obedience to the ravager of their country. Every superstition, every panic created by fear took possession of the half-intoxicated, stupid wretches; and falling in bloody and unresisting heaps all around, it was rather a slaughter than a battle. Opposition seemed everywhere abandoned, excepting on the spot still maintained by the King of England and his brave countrymen. The faithless Scots who had followed the Cummins to the field also stood there and fought with desperation. Wallace ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... to the Tarmanant region of the Sahara. Fate could not have chosen worse for us. But, c'est la guerre. All I regret, however, is that in a crippled condition we have to face a war-party of the Beni Harb. Were we intact, and a match for them, how gladly would I welcome battle with that scum of Islam! Ah, ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... and not to lose my temper, and to be tidy, and not mess my pinafore at dinner. How much easier to be a Christian if one could have a red-cross shield and a white banner, and have a real devil to fight with, and a beautiful Divine Prince to smile at you when the battle was over. How much more exciting to struggle with a winged and clawed dragon, that you knew meant mischief, than to look after your temper, that you never remembered you ought to keep until you had lost it. ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... England proved that he had not lost his hold there. Warwick's extraordinary brief success was but a flash in the pan. London opened her gates and then the pitched battle at Barnet gave a final verdict between the rival Houses which England accepted. This battle was fought on April 14th, when the thick fog and the like speech of the two bodies caused hopeless confusion. ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... surrender our portfolios to her. Some slight contention arose between us on the question who should first contribute to the entertainment of the company; Mr. Arlington exclaiming "Place aux Dames," and I contending that there was great want of chivalry in thus putting a woman into the front of the battle. This little dispute was terminated by the proposal that Annie having been blindfolded to secure impartial justice, the two portfolios should be placed on the table, and she should choose, not only from ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... under what frightful disorder Gulnare was laboring, I put my hand into my pocket for my knife, in order to open a vein. There was no knife there. Friends, I have met with many surprises. More than once in battle and scout have I been nigh death; but never did my blood desert my veins and settle so around the heart, never did such a sickening sensation possess me, as when, standing in that car with my beautiful mare before me marked with those horrible symptoms, I made ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... my grandfather's, they are well meant, but obsolete. If only you had courage, Aruna-ji, to accept the enlightened husband, who might not keep you in strict purdah, then we could work together for liberation of the Mother. Sing Bande Mataram,[11] forty thousand brothers! That is our battle-cry. And one of those is your ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... defiance of the will of the legislature. Advocates of responsible government were stigmatized by the governor's friends as rebels, traitors, radicals and republicans. The Globe proclaimed its adherence to Lord Durham's recommendation, and said: "The battle which the Reformers of Canada will right is not the battle of a party, but the battle of constitutional right against the undue interference of executive power." The prospectus of the paper contained these words: "Firmly attached to the principles of the ...
— George Brown • John Lewis

... statesman, and at this moment his dress savoured of the two professions: it consisted of a close coat of embroidered buff leather, elegant enough to be worn as a court undress, and on which, if need were, one could buckle a cuirass, for battle: like his father, he was pale; like his father, he was to die young, and, even more than his father, his countenance wore that ill-omened melancholy by which fortune-tellers recognise those who are to die a ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... either with music or discourse. They do not so much as know dice, or any such foolish and mischievous games. They have, however, two sorts of games not unlike our chess; the one is between several numbers, in which one number, as it were, consumes another; the other resembles a battle between the virtues and the vices, in which the enmity in the vices among themselves, and their agreement against virtue, is not unpleasantly represented; together with the special opposition between the particular virtues and ...
— Utopia • Thomas More



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