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Devour   Listen
verb
Devour  v. t.  (past & past part. devoured; pres. part. devouring)  
1.
To eat up with greediness; to consume ravenously; to feast upon like a wild beast or a glutton; to prey upon. "Some evil beast hath devoured him."
2.
To seize upon and destroy or appropriate greedily, selfishly, or wantonly; to consume; to swallow up; to use up; to waste; to annihilate. "Famine and pestilence shall devour him." "I waste my life and do my days devour."
3.
To enjoy with avidity; to appropriate or take in eagerly by the senses. "Longing they look, and gaping at the sight, Devour her o'er with vast delight."
Synonyms: To consume; waste; destroy; annihilate.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Devour" Quotes from Famous Books



... window she sat, watching, without heeding them, the fading colours in the sky. She was abandoned to these monsters, and it seemed they would devour her. She could hope for no help from outside since they had as she believed—slain Monsieur de Garnache. Her mind dwelt for a moment on that glimpse of rescue that had been hers a week ago, upon the few hours of liberty which she had enjoyed, but which only seemed now to increase the dark ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... are called, not to the Supper of the Lamb, but to the Supper of the Great God. They will realise then, but too late, that God is a God of Wrath as well as a God of Forgiveness. The God who sent bears to devour the mockers of Elisha, the God who smote the Egyptians for their stubborn wickedness, will assuredly smite them too, unless they make haste to repent. But perhaps it is already too late. Who knows but that to-morrow, in a moment even, Christ may be upon us ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... cooks, the attendants, disappeared; the roof flew away; the walls fell in; and Apollonius remained alone, standing with this woman all in tears at his feet. It was a vampire, who satisfied the handsome young men in order to devour their flesh—because nothing is better for phantoms of this kind than ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert

... her to tremble; one for whom she has a feeling of fear, or rather repulsion. A man of large stature is seen loitering under the shadow of a tree, and looking at her as though he would devour her. Even in his figure there is an expression of sinister and slouching brutality. Still more on his face, visible by the light of a lamp which beams over the entrance door of the hotel. The young girl does not stay to scrutinise it; but shrinking back, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... a king when John and his mother came from town. Every nerve in Elizabeth's body had been stretched to the limit in the production of that meal. Too tired to eat herself, the young wife sat with her baby in her arms and watched the hungry family devour the faultless repast. She might be tired, but the dinner was a success. The next morning, when the usual rising hour of half-past four o'clock came, it seemed to the weary girl that she could not drag herself up to superintend the ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... so, Cecilia struck one little quick blow on a taper-lighter; it flared, and when Helen turned, one of the letters was in flames, and Cecilia continued feeding the flame with them as fast as ever it could devour. ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... back through a sudden interstice in the heaving mass. The draught reminded her more keenly of her little ones huddled together in the fireless garret at home. Ah! what a happy night was in store. She must not let them devour the two loaves to-night; that would be criminal extravagance. No, one would suffice for the banquet, the other must be carefully put by. "To-morrow is also a day," as the old grandmother used to say in her quaint jargon. But the banquet was not ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... none, I think, do there embrace. Now, therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now, let us sport us while we may; And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour, Than languish in his slow-chapt power! Let us roll all our strength, and all Our sweetness up into one ball; And tear our pleasures with rough strife, Through the iron gates of life! Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... difficulties in any profession, that might be put to building battleships, or solving problems of finance, or to devising colonial policies. Let us be thankful that he has put it to literature. Let us be thankful, moreover, that he is not introspective and that his intellect does not devour itself, but feeds upon the great race of man, and, above all, let us rejoice that he is not a "temperamental" artist, but something larger, for a great brain and an ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... advances, Shaking the hills with power, Slaying the hidden demons, The lions that devour. No bloodshed in the wrestling,— But souls new-born arise— The nations growing ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay

... style less grave than that of history, I should perhaps compare the emperor Alexius [1] to the jackal, who is said to follow the steps, and to devour the leavings, of the lion. Whatever had been his fears and toils in the passage of the first crusade, they were amply recompensed by the subsequent benefits which he derived from the exploits of the Franks. His dexterity and vigilance ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... continued to count up: 'Fowls, geese, calves, all the farm implements. And all left to that trull! May misery eat you up... may the worms devour you in the ditch for the wrong you have done me, and for leaving me no better off than ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... necessarily by the desire of self-preservation. Certain objects necessarily produce in us the sensation of pain; our nature then forces us against them, and avert them from us. A tiger, pressed by hunger, springs upon the man, whom he wishes to devour; but this man is not master of his fear, and necessarily seeks means to ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... annual dinner at Blackwall, which the directors gave, and to which he, and George, and I, as friends of the court, were invited. What orations were uttered, what flowing bumpers emptied in the praise of this great Company; what quantities of turtle and punch did Fred devour at its expense! Colonel Newcome was the kindly old chairman at these banquets; the prince, his son, taking but a modest part in the ceremonies, and sitting ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... vaccination ought to be and is not. Until Sir Almroth Wright, following up one of Metchnikoff's most suggestive biological romances, discovered that the white corpuscles or phagocytes which attack and devour disease germs for us do their work only when we butter the disease germs appetizingly for them with a natural sauce which Sir Almroth named opsonin, and that our production of this condiment continually rises and falls rhythmically from negligibility ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... cunning); Who scarce had found what game was running, When he rolled his greedy eyes like a lizard, And, "all is rightly disposed," said he, "Who conquers wins, for a certainty. The church has of old a famous gizzard, She calls it little whole lands to devour, Yet never a surfeit got to this hour; The church alone, dear ladies; sans question, Can give ...
— Faust • Goethe

... idea that we are the chosen people imposes on us heavy duties, and duties only.... We are not out to conquer the world. Have no fear, my dear neighbours, we will not devour you.... Should it be necessary to increase our territory in order that the greater body of the people may have room to develop, then in that case we shall take as much land as may appear to be necessary. We will also plant our foot where it appears important on strategic grounds that ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various

... birds shall tear your flesh unburied." With his dying breath Hector prayed him to take gold from Priam, and give back his body to be burned in Troy. But Achilles said, "Hound! would that I could bring myself to carve and eat thy raw flesh, but dogs shall devour it, even if thy father offered me thy weight in gold." With his last words Hector prophesied and said, "Remember me in the day when Paris shall slay thee in the Scaean gate." Then his brave soul went to the land of the Dead, which ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang

... my father could resist. 'You have verily made me disgusted with myself. So you think we are cannibals, and the only difference between us and your amiable Njam-Njam is that we do not slay our sacrifices with one vigorous blow and then devour them forthwith, but we delight in doing it bit by bit, inch by inch? You are not far wrong; at any rate, I will not force upon you the privileges of a position as to which you entertain such views. ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... sound sleep, I found that my potted beef, which I had carefully hung from a nail the night before, had been almost carried away by small ants. These ants swarm in every house on low altitudes. They assemble in legions as if by magic, and by their orderly activity carry away all that they do not devour, of all eatables which have not been placed on tables which have rags dipped in a solution of corrosive ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... when the fry made their appearance from the eggs, "Around, across, and in every direction the male fish, as the guardian, continually moved." There were three other fish in the aquarium, two tench and a gold carp. As soon as these fish saw the fry, they endeavored to devour them, but were driven off by the brave little father, which seized their fins and struck with all his might at their eyes ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir

... we going?" I said to M. Bellievre, who seemed to be overjoyed that the Prince had not been able to devour me; "for whom do we labour? I know that we are obliged to act as we do; I know, too, that we cannot do better; but should we rejoice at the fatal necessity which pushes us on to exert an action comparatively good and which will unavoidably end in ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... devils swarm All gaping to devour us, We fear not from them the least harm; Success lies sure before us. This world's prince accurst, Let him rage his worst, Only roars about; His doom it is gone out, A word can ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald

... of the excitements, the glories of life on great ranches in the West? Any bright boy will "devour" the books of this series, once he has made a start ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower

... caught, almost all of which were taken from them by my companion, until she had collected more than a dozen fish, from half a pound to a pound weight, which she put away, so that the birds and seal might not devour them. ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... gave quarter t' any such. The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, For want of fighting, was grown rusty, 360 And ate unto itself, for lack Of somebody to hew and hack. The peaceful scabbard where it dwelt The rancour of its edge had felt; For of the lower end two handful 365 It had devour'd, 'twas so manful; And so much scorn'd to lurk in case, As if it durst not shew its face. In many desperate attempts, Of warrants, exigents, contempts, 370 It had appear'd with courage bolder Than Serjeant BUM invading shoulder. Oft had it ta'en possession, And pris'ners ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... to hill the startling war-song flies, And tribes on tribes in dread disorder rise, Track the mute foe and scour the howling wood, Loud as a storm, ungovern'd as a flood; Or deep in groves the silent ambush lay, Lead the false flight, decoy and seize their prey, Their captives torture, butcher and devour, Drink the warm blood and ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... people absurdly refusing to sell them, even when the full price was offered. The Arabs themselves never eat meat as the rule, but the exception, supporting themselves on the milk of their flocks and farinaceous matter. Olive-oil and fat and fruit they devour. Of vegetables they eat, but with little gusto. Their flocks are kept as a sort of reserve wealth, and to pay their contributions. Our course to-day and yesterday was west and south-west. At sunset we encamped ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... O God," he read, "for man goeth about to devour me: he is daily fighting and troubling me. . . . They daily mistake my words: all that they imagine is to do me evil. They hold all together and keep themselves close. . . . Break their teeth, O God, in their mouths; smite the jaw-bones of the lions, O Lord: let ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... him down to the greatest of all beasts, he who waits to devour evil-doers in the Under-world, be they kings or slaves," and he stretched out his long arms and made a motion as of clutching a man by the throat. "Oh! have no fear, Master, I can break him like a stick, and afterwards we will talk the matter over among ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... of maternal love. The reference is to an incident mentioned by Josephus (The Jewish War, Bk. VI, Chap. III), in which a mother is described as driven by the stress of famine to kill and devour ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... wonderful had been his life since she came into it, that he accepted the accuracy of her divination of the futility of his procedure through artists and literary persons, who would feed upon his fame and increase it to have more to devour.... He decided then to say no more about his committee for the present, to accept Sir Henry's offer, and to escape as quickly as possible from the stifling room, with its horrible drawings, and its atmosphere ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore, ye shall receive ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump

... cottages looked—but how home-like! and how sweet the smoke of their chimneys! How cold they must be in winter—but how warm were the hearts inside them! There was Jean Elder's Sunday linen spread like snow on her gooseberry bushes; there was the shoemaker's cow eating her hardest, as if she would devour the very turf that made a border to the road—held from the corn on the other side of the low fence by a strong chain in the hand of a child of seven; and there was the first dahlia of the season in Jonathan Japp's garden! ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... should extend her hand to her lover, as with the ardour of a young greyhound he bounded over the obstacles of the rugged path, was as natural as that Julian, seizing on the hand so kindly stretched out, should devour it with kisses, and, for a moment or two, without reprehension; while the other hand, which should have aided in the liberation of its fellow, served to hide the blushes of the fair owner. But ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... a voice in the affairs of Massachusetts, do you think they would ever have made laws so that a lazy husband could devour all the substance of his active wife—spite of her wish; so that a drunken husband could command her bodily presence in his loathly house; and when an infamous man was divorced from his wife, that he could keep all the children? ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... lord, my OEdipus, why gaze you now, When the whole heaven is clear, as if the gods Had some new monsters made? will you not turn, And bless your people, who devour each word ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... found no avail in one of them, nor broke any so much as a crust of bread in my face. So I wept for myself and repairing to my mother, complained to her of my case. Quoth she, 'On this wise are friends; if thou have aught, they make much of thee and devour thee, but, if thou have nought, they cast thee off and chase thee away.' Then I brought out the other half of my money and bound myself by an oath that I would never more entertain any, except one night, after which I would never again salute him nor take note of ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... sensual beauty. She" (Madame de Berny) "gave me a true love which must finish. This is horrible! I go through troubles and tempests which no one knows of. I have no distractions. Nothing refreshes this heat, which spreads and will perhaps devour me." He then passes on to Madame de Castries, and continues: "An unheard-of coldness has succeeded gradually to what I thought was passion, in a woman who came to me rather nobly."[*] In a letter to Madame Hanska, speaking of Madame de Castries, though he does not name her, he ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... endowed El Carnicerin with admirable self-possession. It was he who was permitting himself indolently to be won by Justa, who was frantically fond of him. As they danced she threw herself upon him, her eyes sparkled and her nostrils dilated; it seemed as if she wished to dominate him, swallow him, devour him. She did not take her eyes off him, and if she saw him with another woman her ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... and outrage; there is bestiality and obscenity about both pain and pleasure when in their voracious maw they devour the magic of the unfathomable world. Thus it may be noted that most great and heroic souls hold their supreme pain at a distance from them, with a proud gesture of contempt, and go down at the last with their complex vision ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys

... "what we can't devour we'll be only too glad to leave to our good friend Tolly Tip here. The chances are he'll know what to do with everything so none of it ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... up one of the two partridges that had fallen to his new Marlin ten bore, look critically at it, feel the meat on the plump breast; and then shake his head, as though the idea of having to turn cannibal, and devour the game raw did not ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... have been if they had attained none of it? Now if the works of our most scientific men and best citizens lead to such small utility, tell us what we are to think of the crowd of obscure writers and idle men of letters who devour the public ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... the company, as detailed at length in their eloquent prospectus, were to invade the gold regions of the Australian continent with a monster engine, contrived by the indefatigable Crushcliff, and which, it was confidently expected, would devour the soil of the auriferous district at a rate averaging about three tons per minute. It was furnished, so the engineer averred, with a stomach of 250 tons capacity, supplied with peristaltic grinders of steel of the most obdurate ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various

... most repulsive to me about the latter, who, when they have seized their prey, human or otherwise, do not at once devour it, but stow it away in their nests under water for two or three days until the flesh becomes decomposed, when they return to their hideous meal. Alligators do not attain a very large size in Borneo, ranging from 10 to ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt

... say there is no devil, but I am convinced that he is very real. In fact, I have had some personal experiences with him that leave no room for doubt. He is right here in this world. Like a lion he "goeth about seeking whom he may devour." What to do with him is the biggest problem that faces some Christians. They spend so much time thinking about the devil, fearing him, and trying to combat him, that they have little time for God. Their testimony is a testimony ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... carpet, or rather pall, upon fields, crops, gardens, copses, groves, orchards, vineyards, olive woods, orangeries, palm plantations, and the deep forests, sparing nothing within their reach, and where there was nothing to devour, lying helpless in drifts, or crawling forward obstinately, as they best might, with the hope of prey. They could spare their hundred thousand soldiers twice or thrice over, and not miss them; their masses filled the bottoms of the ravines and hollow ways, impeding the traveller as ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... only the tame elephant that carries the children on its back, but to the unaccustomed eyes of the Wallypug and his party it seemed, so they told me afterwards, some strange and awful monster ready to devour them. ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow

... near to the gates of death, and he saw the grave so ready to devour him, that he would often say his recovery was supernatural: but that God that then restored his health continued it to him till the fifty-ninth year of his life: and then, in August 1630, being with his eldest daughter, ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... does not present himself; indeed, every man, like myself, has a right to count upon some other, and everyone thus counting, every hour's delay, but makes our state worse; far at any moment—and how deep a shame would that be for us! Kotzebue may leave Germany, unpunished, and go to devour in Russia the treasures for which he has exchanged his honour, his conscience, and his German name. Who can preserve us from this shame, if every man, if I myself, do not feel strength to make myself the chosen instrument of God's justice? Therefore, forward! ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the law to "eat Their terms" is obviously right, But to devour the books themselves ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various

... males went to devour the young, as they thought, and the females followed to protect them. Great battles are often fought between the males and females ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... girl sat by the little table, gazing intently on the picture. Her great eyes seemed to devour it, and yet there was something absent-minded, speculative, in her steady look. She did not speak until Esther played the last number ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... care to bring off with them a live beast, from the quarter in which they have committed their ravage, they cut its throat, drink its blood, and even the boys with their teeth tear the heart and entrails to pieces, which they ravenously devour, giving thereby to understand, that those of the enemies who shall fall into their hands, have no better treatment to ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard

... steed? Thou; O father, art the discoverer of nature, thou suppliest to us a father's teachings, and from thy pages, {213} illustrious one, even as bees sip all manner of sweets along the flowery glades, we in like manner devour all thy golden words, golden and right worthy to live for ever. For soon as thy philosophy, birth of thy godlike mind, hath begun to declare the origin of things, straightway the terrors of the soul are scattered, earth's walls are broken apart, and through all the ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall

... to make ourselves quite at home, and officers went freely about "seeking whom they might devour," visited old established O.P.'s, and searched for new or better ones. It is a curious fact that the average subaltern is never fully satisfied with an O.P., and is always bent on discovering "something better," although in ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose

... patriots, who had been uniform in their resistance of the insurgents, news is brought that their brother soldiers are coming to assist them, and to revenge the wrongs they have suffered. A friendly repast is provided, the military arrive, embrace their ill-fated hosts, and devour what they have provided; which is no sooner done, than they drive all these poor people into the churchyard, and stab them one after another." Report of Faure, Vice-President of a Military Commission ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... we entered was spacious and elegant; at least, differed so greatly from anything we had seen, that we imagined it the finest place upon earth. It was covered all over with a carpet of various colours, that not only concealed some bird-seeds which we came to devour, but also for some time prevented our being discovered; as we were of much the same hue with many of the flowers on the carpet. At last a little girl, who was at work in the room, by the side of her mamma, shrieked out as if violently hurt. Her mamma ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner

... "Listen to the old 'un." You, too, begin to be alarmed at such boldness. You know, like the pitiful parent, that the world is a very dangerous place, and that your neighbour's cat goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. It has been contended by some men of science that all birds are born fearless after the manner of the young thrush, and that fear is a lesson that has to be taught to each new generation by the more experienced ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... Russians had been bivouacked above the town for a week. Buonaparte advanced with his troops, on which they retired, but troops do not walk up and down the earth like lambs, but rather like roaring lions, seeking whom they may devour; however, here let us insert once for all the account I have invariably received from sufferers throughout the whole Theatre of war—that the conduct of the Russians and French was widely different; the former generally behaving ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... it was, sir,' rejoined Snawley; 'the elevated feeling, the feeling of the ancient Romans and Grecians, and of the beasts of the field and birds of the air, with the exception of rabbits and tom-cats, which sometimes devour their offspring. My heart yearned towards him. I could have—I don't know what I couldn't have done to him in the anger of ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... of sacred lays The spheres began to move, And sung the great Creator's praise To all the blest above; So when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And Music shall untune ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... penny, he nearly starved himself, only in order that he might be able to pay for a seat in the gallery whenever she acted, and be able to devour her with his eyes. He always got a seat in the front row, for he was always outside three hours before the doors opened, so as to be one of the first to gain his Olympus, the seat of the theatrical enthusiasts; he grew pale, and his heart beat violently when she ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... the amount and kind of fuel used. The lowest possible rate is three rupees or about one dollar in our money. When the family cannot afford that they simply throw the body into the sacred stream and let it float down until the fish devour it. When a person dies the manager of the burning ghat is notified. He sends to the house his assistants or employes, who bring the body down to the river bank, sometimes attended by members of the ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... absorbs the masculine cellule, or is impregnated by it. Thus, to use the term "passive" in this connection is surely curiously misleading; as well call the snake passive when, waiting motionless, it charms and draws towards it the victim it will devour. Illustrations are apt to mislead, nevertheless they do help us to see straight, and until we have come to find the truth here we shall be fumbling for the grounds of any safe conclusion as to the natural relationship of the female and the male. ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... the wrong things I had done, with all the weaknesses and evil tendencies of my nature, whether mine by fault or by inheritance, had taken shape, and, in the persons of the howling wolves below, were besieging me, to get at me, and devour me. Suddenly my soul was gone. Above were the still, bright stars, shining unmoved; beneath was the white, betraying snow, and the howling wolves; away through the forest was fleeting, ever fleeting, my poor soul, in the likeness of a white-faced child! All at once ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... regarded him with grave approval and, stepping to his side, favored him with another greasy hand-shake, after which ceremony he squatted by the fire and removing a half-dozen pieces of bacon from the frying-pan proceeded to devour them ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... feast had a medical or mystic character, it was indispensable that each guest should devour the whole of the portion given him, however enormous. Should he fail, the host would be outraged, the community shocked, and the spirits roused to vengeance. Disaster would befall the nation,—death, perhaps, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... the only difficulty is that we do not, and no doubt we cannot, understand that law. It is very easy for some dreaming and visionary theorist to say that it is most evidently unjust for the lion to devour the deer, and for the eagle to tear and eat the wren; but the trouble is, that we know of no other way, according to the frame, the constitution, and the organs which God has given them, in which the lion and the eagle could manage to live at all. Our little measure of justice is not God's measure. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... horror. Jean Vanderdoes, known in literature by the name of Dousa, and celebrated for his Latin poems, commanded the place. Valdez, who conducted the siege, urged Dousa to surrender; when the latter replied, in the name of the inhabitants, "that when provisions failed them, they would devour their left hands, reserving the right to defend their liberty." A party of the inhabitants, driven to disobedience and revolt by the excess of misery to which they were shortly reduced, attempted to force the burgomaster, ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... were the glorious twin brother and sister, Phoebus Apollo and Diana or Artemis. They were born in the isle of Delos, which was caused to rise out of the sea to save their mother, Latona, from the horrid serpent, Python, who wanted to devour her. Gods were born strong and mighty; and the first thing Apollo did was to slay the serpent at Delphi with his arrows. Here was a dim remembrance of the promise that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, and also a thought of the way Light slays the ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... off among you; run in upon her and devour her, one and all of you; make her as hateful to herself and to the King, as ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... drink a few spoonfuls, dear, you may feel more like eating," Miss Drayton's cheery voice was saying. "And do taste the toast. If it's as good as it looks, you'll devour the ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin

... were discussing our supper, they managed to devour the whole of the opossum between them; and then, having stuck some boughs in the ground to form a hut, they lay down side by side beneath them, and were quickly asleep, evidently feeling perfectly ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston

... towns, and palaces, The tenfold vengeance flew; Locusts in swarms devour'd their trees, ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts

... always it would be so, if man was a doomed animal who would never to the last days of his time take hold of fate and change it to his will. Always, it may be, he will remain kindly but jealous, desirous but discursive, able and unwisely impulsive, until Saturn who begot him shall devour him ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... finish. They toss their meat into their mouths to a tune, every man keeping time with his chop-sticks, while we, on the contrary, make anything but harmony with the clatter of our knives and forks. A Chinaman will not drink a drop of milk, but he will devour birds'-nests, snails, and the fins of sharks with a great relish. Our mourning color is black and theirs is white; they mourn for their parents three years, we a much shorter time. The principal room in their houses is called "the hall of ancestors," ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... have a thing held up for their admiration which is entirely out of their reach. They become like bears climbing a greased pole; they see a great name above them—a tempting sugary morsel which they would fain snatch and devour— and when their uncouth efforts fail, they huddle together on the ground beneath, look up with dull, peering eyes, and impotently snarl! But you,"—and here his gazed rested doubtfully, yet questioningly, on his companion's open, serene countenance—'you, if rumor speaks ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... sure Kit doesn't," says Monica, provokingly. "And really, to do Mr. Ryde justice too, I never heard him mention a roaring lion. Perhaps you are thinking of Artemus Ward's lion that goes about 'seeking whom he may devour somebody.'" She ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... their own and their father's use; and when the grim-looking old warrior held up a warning finger at them and said they were not to eat the provisions, they brought a smile to his lips by running off together and pretending to devour the contents of ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn

... to partake of some other feasts, and always had to complain of the quantity of provision and the length of time taken to consume it; for it would not have been proper to have said devour, all went on so fair and softly. The servants wait as slowly as their ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... Forbear, ye sons of insolence! forbear, In riot to consume a wretched heir. In the young soul illustrious thought to raise, Were ye not tutor'd with Ulysses' praise? Have not your fathers oft my lord defined, Gentle of speech, beneficent of mind? Some kings with arbitrary rage devour, Or in their tyrant-minions vest the power; Ulysses let no partial favours fall, The people's parent, he protected all; But absent now, perfidious and ingrate! His stores ye ravage, and usurp ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... but let us wait. In the meantime let us enjoy all the trifles, all the sweet preliminaries of love. Devour thy mistress, dearest, but abandon to me all thy being. If this night is too short we must console ourselves to-morrow by ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... to speak of love in such an awful hour, For hunger glistened in our eyes, and grated to devour The very rags that covered us! My pangs I cannot tell, But in that little hour I ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... time sufficiently composed to understand my own feelings. I felt as one just relieved from a heavy burden, who breathes freely, relaxes his contracted muscles, and walks to and fro in his strength, as though he could devour space, and inhale all the air of heaven. My own heart was the burden of which I had been relieved, and, in giving it to another, I felt as if I had for the first time entered into the fulness of life. Man is so truly born to love, that it is only when he has the consciousness ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine

... crown of twelve stars upon her head (chap, xii.), is beyond all question the ancient Jewish church; the child which is born to the woman is the Christian church; the great red dragon that seeks to devour the child is the Satanic power, the Prince of this world. The Dragon is here on the earth because he has been expelled from heaven. The war of the Dragon against the woman indicates the persecutions of the church; the flight of the woman to the wilderness may symbolize ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... whenever they can. The whalers called it "struntjaeger"—refuse-hunter—because they believed that it hunted gulls in order to make them void their excrements which "struntjaegeren" was said to devour ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... fight, to show courage and to stand firm. How many of those who once sat where you are now sitting and who were pure and innocent as yourselves have now, alas, become lost sinners, Judases who have rejected their God, devils as roaring lions going about seeking whom they may devour! Be strong, listen to your good parents: it is to them alone that you ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels

... people should share in the last great enterprise of the crusade. More disgraceful than these feuds were the scenes witnessed during the siege and after the conquest of Marra. Heedlessness and waste soon brought the assailants to devour the flesh of dogs and of human beings. The bodies of Turks were torn from their sepulchres, ripped up for the gold which they were supposed to have swallowed, and the fragments cooked and eaten. Of the besieged many slew themselves to avoid falling into the hands of the Christians; to some ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... MAJORITY ARE WICKED; who informs them, that the train which wealth and beauty draw after them, is lured only by the scent of prey; and that, perhaps, among all those who crowd about them with professions and flatteries, there is not one who does not hope for some opportunity to devour or betray them, to glut himself by their destruction, or to share their spoils ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... head; his simple, natural, and graceful attitude in his arm-chair; his respectful attention to the slightest remarks or suggestions of others in relation to what was spoken of; his kindly benevolence of expression as he looked round now and then on the circle in our little parlour, all bent to 'devour up his discourse,' filled up and enlarged the meaning which I fear is but ill conveyed in the words as they ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream, And greedily devour the treacherous bait: So angle we for Beatrice; who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... up, and then he would suit her perfectly. For his part, without plainly understanding the truth, he scented something, divined that his fortune was at hand, and was quite ready to wait awhile for the certain feast, like a young wolf who consents to be domesticated in order that he may, later on, devour the ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... God, when them thy inward grace dost shower Into my breast, How full of light and lively power Is then my soul! How am I blest! How can I then all difficulties devour! Thy might, Thy spright, With ease ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... Grass for our cattle to devour, He makes the growth of every field: Herbs, for man's use, of various pow'r, That either food or physic yield. 15. With cluster'd grapes he crowns the vine To cheer man's heart oppress'd with cares: Gives oil that makes his face to shine. And corn ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... a dark brown tough rind enclosing the kernel or seed, and is three-sided in form, with sharp angles, similar in shape to beech-mast, whence the name from the Ger. Buchweizen, beechwheat. Buckwheat is grown in Great Britain only to supply food for pheasants and to feed poultry, which devour the seeds with avidity. In the northern countries of Europe, however, the seeds are employed as human food, chiefly in the form of cakes, which when baked thin have an agreeable taste, with a darkish somewhat violet colour. The meal of buckwheat is also ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... he was the principal man among them, the captain of the vessel they had been shipwrecked in having been dead some time): they were, he said, the more surprised to see him, because they knew that he was fallen into the hands of the savages, who, they were satisfied, would devour him as they did all the rest of their prisoners; that when he told them the story of his deliverance, and in what manner he was furnished for carrying them away, it was like a dream to them, and their astonishment, he said, was somewhat like that of Joseph's ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... rule knows of no exception, the orders given were executed to the letter by preventing the ingress of the firemen with their engines until the general order of exclusion was followed by a countermand. This of course took time, leaving the fire to devour at its leisure the enormous meal that fate had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... on both sides," said the colonel, bowing to the ladies, who sat together. "Pray Miss Laura, don't talk of being a sheep, we are all ready to devour ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... sheep and goats we had left were not likely to fare quite so well as ourselves; there being no grass here, but what was coarse and harsh. It was, however not so bad, but that we expected they would devour it with great greediness, and were the more surprised to find that they would not taste it; nor did they seem over-fond of the leaves of more tender plants. Upon examination, we found their teeth loose; and that many of them had every other symptom of an inveterate sea-scurvy. Out of ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... the keen morning air, the swift hoofs beat their spirited music along the road, keeping time to the pulsing of two hearts that are moved with the same eager desire—to conquer space, to devour the distance, to attain ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke

... shall have their spate (For both of the twain are one) And lust and greed devour the seed That else had growth begun. Fiercely the flow of death shall go And short the good man's shrift! All hell's awake full toll to take, And passions ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... old "freedom" of leaving the individual strong man at liberty, unchecked by common action, to prey on the weak and the helpless. The "New Freedom" in the abstract seems to be the freedom of the big to devour the little. In the concrete I may add that Mr. Wilson's misrepresentations of what I have said seem to indicate that he regards the new freedom as freedom from all obligation to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... years, and we are probably in Eocene or Miocene times, among the huge and often grotesque mammals, and our ancestor, a little creature, probably of the marsupial kind, is skulking about and hiding from the great carnivorous beasts that would devour him. ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... the Short Line, was the generally accepted one in railroad and financial circles at the capital. Civilization apart, there is still a deal of the primitive in human nature, and wolves are not the only creatures that are prone to fall upon the disabled member of the pack and devour him. ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... needy Rogues only feed him with Praise, to fatten him for their Palates, and then devour him. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... injured others so much that, by way of precaution, these formidable teeth had been filed down; but, if threatened, she would still turn on her keeper. The Gibbons eat insects, but appear generally to avoid animal food. A Siamang, however, was seen by Mr. Bennett to seize and devour greedily a live lizard. They commonly drink by dipping their fingers in the liquid and then licking them. It is asserted that they sleep in ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... see a boat on an utterly lonely sea without thinking of the secret stories that it carries, of the sun moving round that private world, of the shadows upon the deck that I cannot see, of the song of passing seas that I cannot hear, of the night coming across a great horizon to devour it when I shall have forgotten it. Further off and more suggestive than a star, it ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson

... of the mountain his children devour, And the pestilence seize him with death-dealing power; May his warriors all perish and he in his gloom, Like the hosts of the red men, be ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... their schemes for them? I would take those slanderers, And throw them to wolves and tigers. If these refused to devour them, I would cast them into the north[1]. If the north refused to receive them, I would throw them into the hands of ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... myself to-day that one man who appeared in the elder world, blonde, ferocious, a killer and a lover, a meat-eater and a root-digger, a gypsy and a robber, who, club in hand, through millenniums of years wandered the world around seeking meat to devour and sheltered nests for ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... sent out a picked force, with some Vitellian troops in support, and scattered the mob of fanatics. Mariccus was captured in the engagement, and later thrown to wild beasts.[358] As they refused to devour him, the common people stupidly believed him invulnerable, until he was executed in the ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... for us the blessed thought of the peaceful relations that shall then subsist among men. The tribes of the earth shall couch beside each other like the quiet sheep in the fold, and having learned of His great meekness, they shall no more bite nor devour one another. Alas! alas! the words seem too good to be true. They seem long, long of coming to pass. Ever since they were spoken the old bloody work has been going on, and the old lusts of the human heart have been busy sowing the dragon's teeth that shall spring up in wars and fightings. In ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... smile, His proffered hand's a snare; He's plannin deepest villany, When seemingly mooast fair. He leads yo on wi' oily tongue, Swears he's yo're fastest friend; He get's yo once within his coils, An crushes yo i'th' end. Old Nick, we're tell'd, gooas prowlin aght, An seeks whom to devour; But he's a saint, compared to some, 'At's th' luk to ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley

... devour dead flesh every day. And dead blood is a sweet syrup for you. Aren't you afraid?— Indeed your earliest fathers also had, And before you awoke, Crammed thousands of ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein

... up-stream, and had stayed awhile to watch the most expert of all river-fishers, as she dived and swam from bank to bank, and sometimes, turning swiftly into the backwater, landed on the shingle close by Brighteye's reed-bed, to devour at leisure a ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... salar, but one can readily imagine the desperate struggle for existence that must go on as the swarms reach the grounds and fight for positions; while no doubt on their outskirts are small armies of trout and other fish eager to devour the eggs as soon as they are laid. As the salmon seem to pass right up to the headquarters (cf. Jordan) they would get beyond the big trout. Probably it is here that their numbers protect them, the trout being ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert

... the mind from itself. Intellectual pleasures give only a brief satisfaction, unless directed to a practical end, like the earnest imparting of knowledge in educational pursuits, or the pursuit of art for itself alone,—to create, and not to devour, as the epicure eats his dinner. Where is the happiness of devouring books with no attempt to profit by them, except in the temporary pleasure of satisfying an appetite? So even the highest means of happiness may become a savor of death unto death when perverted or unimproved. Never ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... to plunder at this signal hour, The birds shall tear him, and the dogs devour." —POPE: Iliad, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... a shark can swim, and any man who shall here be thrown out of a ship it bears away like a wild horse into the uttermost ocean. Presently he is spent and goes down, and his bones are scattered with the rest, and the gods devour his spirit." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... snare; He's plannin deepest villany, When seemingly mooast fair; He leads yo' on wi' oily tongue, Swears he's yo're fastest friend. He get's yo' once within his coils, An' crushes yo' ith' end. Old Nick, we're tell'd, gooas prowlin' aat, An' seeks whom to devour; But he's a saint, compared to some, 'At's th' luk ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley

... time;" for so he called bleeding them to death. There was at that time an Egyptian of a most voracious appetite, who would digest raw flesh, or any thing else that was given him. It was credibly reported, that the emperor was extremely desirous of furnishing him with living men to tear and devour. Being elated with his great success in the perpetration of crimes, he declared, "that no prince before himself ever knew the extent of his power." He threw out strong intimations that he would not even spare ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... Chronicler tells us, "from which greater benefit had accrued to the country than from this; for during the three and a half years that Edward had spent in it, a universal famine prevailed to such a degree that men were wont to devour one another." ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... contemplates the universality of Death. Simonides had dared to say: 'One horrible Charybdis waits for all.' That was as near a discord as a Greek could venture on. Lucretius describes the open gate and 'huge wide-gaping maw' which must devour heaven, earth, and sea, and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... women, no more innocent than I am, will smile at my Christmas card, and give it with warm kisses and loving words to their dear ones; and to-day, my white dove of hope, flies back in my face, with the talons of a harpy, to devour me with maddening reminders of 'what might have been'. My coveted three hundred dollars! Three hundred taunting fiends! to jeer and torment me. The Christmas sun will shine on a pauper's empty cot in a charity hospital; on a disgraced, insulted, forsaken convict. Take away this ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... ground, under the impulse of a new idea, "I vill show to you vat ve vill do. Ve vill each cot hoff von finger. Redhand, he vill begin vid de thomb, et so on till it come to me, and I vill cot hoff mine leetle finger. Each vill devour the finger of de oder, an' so've shall have von dinner vidout committing mordor—ha! ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... resounded in every quarter; to rid themselves of the hosts of dead John and Simon had them thrown from the walls, to fester in heaps before the Roman works. Among the scenes of horror related, a woman was seen to kill and devour her ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... "good-bye," the steamer gradually disappears from sight. My friend has "a bad headache" from all the excitement of the morning. I guide him carefully between the cases and barrels the steamer has brought, and deposit him in his bunk; then I retire to my own quarters to devour ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... that all which was ours had become theirs. Their excessive greed made them imprudent. Not satisfied with "eating us up," with a coffee-pot ever on the fire, with demanding endless tobacco, and with making their two garrons devour more barley than our eight mules, they began to debate, aloud as usual, how much ready money they should demand. This was at last settled at four hundred dollars; and the talk was reported to me by the Bsh-Buzk Husayn, whom they had compelled to cook for them. At the same time unpleasant ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... speak to the conscience; some plough and break the clods; some weed out, and some sow; some wait that fowls devour not the seed. But wait all for the gathering of the simple-hearted ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... head, like the clapping of wings, and then began to perceive the woeful condition I was in; that some eagle had got the ring of my box in his beak, with an intent to let it fall on a rock, like a tortoise in a shell, and then pick out my body, and devour it: for the sagacity and smell of this bird enable him to discover his quarry at a great distance, though better concealed than I could be within a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... the earth inside the huts, and in some of the dwellings graves are quite numerous. This custom of interior burial has probably been adopted because the wild animals of the forest would otherwise eat the corpse. Horrible to relate, their own half-wild dogs sometimes devour the dead, though an older member of the tribe is generally left home to ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... like a bird. 4. There is a funny fable about the bat, founded upon this double character of beast and bird, which I will tell you. 5. An owl was once prowling about, when he came across a bat. So he caught him in his claws, and was about to devour him. Upon this, the bat began to squeal terribly; and he said to the owl, "Pray, what do you take me for, that you use me thus?" 6. "Why, you are a bird, to be sure," said the owl, "and I am fond of birds. I love dearly to break their little bones." ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... hungry lions do their prey watchful eyes, just so a Observe with watchful eyes, wicked man surprises So heedless innocents would they with sudden force—a very With sudden force surprise; just simile. And then, like lions merciless, They surprise them like Their trembling souls devour; lions, but then they devour And thus the helpless do oppress (4) devour them [like] lions. When ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... quite a high moral line about cats. Some, like Mr. Titterton, I think, admire a cat for its moral independence and readiness to scratch anybody "if he does not behave himself." Others, like Mr. Belloe, regard the cat as cruel and secret, a fit friend for witches; one who will devour everything, except, indeed, poisoned food, "so utterly lacking is it in Christian simplicity and humility." For my part, I have neither of these feelings. I admire cats as I admire catkins; those little fluffy things that hang on ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... World. I did not see one House in all our March; and their Oeconomy, if I may call it such, is much the same with that of the Arabs or Tartars. Hutts, or Cabins of Trees and Trash, are their Places of Habitation; in which they dwell, till their half-horn'd Cattle have devour'd the Grass, and then remove, staying no where longer than ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe

... Then he turned and looked at the colonel and his wife. Perspiration glistened on his pasty, pale face and the rolls of fat that crowded over his flannel collar. His little, dead, white-rimmed, pale gray eyes had the ferocity of a hog's which has found something to rend and devour. He looked into their shocked faces and ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers

... quantity of vegetable life is required to furnish oxygen for the fish. In a well balanced aquarium the water requires renewal only two or three times a year. It is well to have an excess of plants and a number of snails, as the snails will devour all the decaying vegetable matter which would otherwise poison the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... reaching the cupboard where, usually, I keep brandy and biscuits. I poured myself out a little of the stimulant, and drank it off. Then, taking a handful of biscuits, I returned to my chair, and began to devour them, ravenously. I was vaguely surprised at my hunger. I felt as though I had eaten nothing for an uncountably ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson

... soldiery the swine, In whose gross forms the fiends, exercised, flew? Oh! watch them through the ages, they pursue The noble and devour all things Divine. Look! they illustrate horrors, which prove true The Hell, which Milton's ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle

... of a child who was on the point of crying. She threw herself first over the one, then over the other; then took water up in her webbed hand, and poured it over them; but all was in vain—they were dead, and dead they would remain. She knew that. Wild beasts would soon come and devour their bodies. No, that must not be; therefore she determined to dig a grave in the ground for them, but she had nothing to dig it with except the branch of a tree and both her own hands. With these she worked away until her fingers bled. She found she made so little progress, that she feared ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... antagonism of two States which, as neighbours, had habitually sought expansion each at the other's cost. Lombardy, according to the expression of an older time, was the artichoke which the Kings of Piedmont were destined to devour leaf by leaf. Austria, on the other hand, sought extension towards the Alps: it had in 1799 clearly shown its intention of excluding the House of Savoy altogether from the Italian mainland; and the remembrance of this epoch had led the restored dynasty in 1815 ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... dews from Mancinella flow, And scald with caustic touch the tribes below; 50 Dense shadowy leaves on stems aspiring borne With blight and mildew thin the realms of corn; And insect hordes with restless tooth devour The unfolded bud, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... suffered the tortures of hunger and thirst. Cold and tired out, he finally lay down on the ground, writhing with violent pains in his stomach. At length he could stand it no longer, and dragging himself to the box, he seized the ham and began to devour it ravenously. This brought on a maddening thirst, which he tried to quench by long draughts of the wine. Then he became very drunk and so, laughing and crying, he drank until ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre

... a moment in low tones in Cuban Spanish, but it needed only to watch his eyes to guess where his heart was. He seemed to fairly devour every move that Anitra made ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve

... way, you would be run over. Sometimes, when we came suddenly upon them, or waked them out of their sleep, (for they are a sluggish sleepy animal), they would raise up their heads; snort and snarl, and look as fierce as if they meant to devour us; but as we advanced upon them they always run away, so that they are ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook

... her destruction; for, in the pale phosphorescent light emitted by the broken water surrounding the crag, some of the sailors averred, as we sheered by, that they saw several sharks plunging about—ready to devour any of us who might have tried to swim ashore had ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... of fresh beef is at least ten pounds per day. Many of them, I believe, consume much more, and some of them less. Nor does this quantity appear to be injurious to health, or fully to satisfy the appetite. I have seen some of the men roast their meat and devour it by the fire from the hour of encamping until late bed-time. They would then sleep until one or two o'clock in the morning, when, the cravings of hunger being greater than the desire for repose, the same occupation would be resumed, and continued until ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... that Cataline's associates gave proof of their loyalty to that agitator and to one another by sacrificing and eating a man. Achilles expressed his wish that he might devour Hector. The Kafirs ate their own children in the famine of 1857, and the Germans ate one another when starvation maddened them, long after Maryland and Massachusetts had become thriving settlements in the New World. There is a historic instance ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... the Enclosing of Commons hath made Neighbours, that should have been like Sheep, to Bite and devour one another. . . . Again, Do our Old People, any of them Go Out from the Institutions of God, Swarming into New Settlements, where they and their Untaught Families are like to Perish for Lack of Vision? They that have done so, heretofore, have to ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... Him! But He has overtaken me. How has the devil troubled and tempted me, how has he for six years assailed me, seeing that I no longer wished to serve him! And now when God comes to touch me and draw me, he seeks to devour me; but he shall not have me. God who protects me is stronger than he," and much more of similar import. We then spoke to him according to his state and condition, which did him much good. This pieuse prated also after her ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... day when Saint Kyaranus was keeping the herds, a cow gave birth to a calf in his presence. Now in that hour the dutiful boy saw a wretched wasted hungry wolf a-coming towards him, and God's servant said to him, "Go, poor wretch, and devour that calf." Forthwith the famished hound fell upon the calf and devoured it. But when the holy herd-boy had come home with his herds, the cow, seeking her calf, was making a loud outcry; and when Derercha, mother of Saint Kyaranus, saw it, she said unto him, ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... figuring the Son Himself, becomes to Hugh of Saint Victor the emblem of cruelty. Basing their argument on a text in the Psalms, certain writers identify it with Lucifer. He is in fact the lion who seeks whom he may devour, the lion who rushes on his victim. David speaks of him with the dragon to be trodden under foot, and Saint Peter in his first Epistle describes him as roaring in quest ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans



Words linked to "Devour" :   enjoy, consume, destroy, eat, down, bask, savor, relish, raven, savour, go through, guttle, ruin, pig, devourer



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