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Engulf   Listen
verb
Engulf  v. t.  (past & past part. engulfed; pres. part. engulfing)  To absorb or swallow up as in a gulf. "It quite engulfs all human thought."
Synonyms: See Absorb.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Engulf" Quotes from Famous Books



... nephew of mine ever develops into a sawbones, to leave him in charge here and go down South myself and put up a shack on my clearing." Martin was watching Doris now from under his brows; he was talking against the silence that might engulf her again; seeking to hold her to a future that he had been vaguely considering in the past. He ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... destroying, and melting its more fragile riches like frost-work. But the money of the vanquished was useful to the victor for his own purposes. Rome took from Alexander, the barbarians from Rome, and modern civilization from the barbarians. The waves of time roll over and engulf all the monuments of men, all that gold and silver buy and sell, and, as it were, create; but these irrepressible tokens themselves float and glitter in the foam-crests upon those very billows. It cannot, then, be doubted that the instruments and accompaniments ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various

... furiously on the Trojans and killed Doryclus, a bastard son of Priam; then he wounded Pandocus, Lysandrus, Pyrasus, and Pylartes; as some swollen torrent comes rushing in full flood from the mountains on to the plain, big with the rain of heaven—many a dry oak and many a pine does it engulf, and much mud does it bring down and cast into the sea— even so did brave Ajax chase the foe furiously over the plain, slaying ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... puppy. It was too much for Ardea to have her eye-anchor thus transformed into a dizzying whirlwind of gray monsters. She reached backward for the reassuring hand: it was not there, and the next instant the hungry pool rose up to engulf her. ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... he laughed softly, as he drew away from her and seated himself on the railing of the veranda which hung out over the old ocean so that its hungry waves seemed to be leaping up to engulf him. The gray peaks and gable of the Hawtry cottage massed themselves back of him and in the silvering moonlight he looked like a white eagle ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... so," answered Ned, as he played the light on the doomed craft. Even as he did so he saw a great wave engulf her, and, a moment later she sank. ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton

... the prevailing Dick Turpin methods of high finance, never took his eye from the horizon of public action, where daily he expected to see "the cloud no bigger than a man's hand" that was to expand into the storm that would engulf these and other long ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens

... fall in with the ship again, and must be starved, at all events. On we ran through the passage in the reef. As we got clear of the land, it required all Owen's skill to steer the boat amid the fearful seas, which threatened every instant to engulf her. Four hands continued baling, without stopping; and even these could scarcely keep the boat from foundering. On, on we flew. Night came on, still the gale did not abate. Owen's countenance, as the darkness closed around us, looked grim ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... the house, giving the stockholders the free use of their boxes and 116 free admissions every night besides. The second season started brilliantly, but just as financial disaster was preparing to engulf it the performances were abruptly brought to an end by the prima donna, Signora, or Signorina, Fanti, who took French leave—an incident which remains unique in New York's operatic annals, at least in its ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... smiled sadly. "I suppose that sometime some day, this page of life would have scorched my sight. Oh, my lord, what was there in me that you dared speak so to me? Was there naught to have stayed your tongue and stemmed the tide in which you would engulf me?" He had listened as in a dream at first. She had read him as he might read himself, had revealed him with the certain truth, as none other had done in all his days. He was silent for a long moment, then raised his hand ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... his mud hut to shelter him from the wind and the rain and the terror of the beyond. Outside is the wilderness ready to engulf him. Rather than be left alone at the mercy of elemental things, with no little hut, warm and dark and stuffy, to shelter one, a woman will sacrifice everything—liberty, ambition, health, power, her very dignity. There was a letter in Hadria's pocket at this moment, eloquently protesting ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... that lay upon the cove the boat drew near that bore Mr. Tubbs and his fair charges. I saw the three cork helmets grouped together in the stern. Then the foaming fringe of wavelets caught the boat, hurled it forward, seemed all but to engulf it out leaped the sailors. Out leaped Mr. Tubbs, and disappeared at once beneath the waves. Shrill and prolonged rose the shrieks of my aunt and Miss Higglesby-Browne. Valiantly Mr. Shaw and Cuthbert Vane had rushed into the ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... years. Many of the Irish resident in those localities have left for the shores of the Emerald Isle, but by far the larger number, unblessed with this world's goods, have been compelled to remain where they are, and to anticipate the fearful event which was to engulf them in the bowels of the earth. The frantic cries, the incessant appeals to Heaven for deliverance, the invocations to the Virgin and the Saints for mediation, the heartrending supplications for assistance, heard on every side during the day, sufficiently ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... launching has been arranged for and completed by expert hands; she like the ship gathers way and slides forth into an ocean: but, unlike the ship which is certain to float, the waters may close over and engulf her, or perchance she may be towed back to that haven of obscurity from which she emerged, to rust there in silence and neglect. There is excitement in the breast of one man alone—to wit, the author. If his book possesses one supreme qualification she will escape ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... speeches, they made up in wisdom and mature judgment. There is a note of exultation in his speeches just after the war. Jehovah had triumphed, his people were free. He had seen the Red Sea of blood open and let them pass, and engulf ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... inward commotion or dismay. The next moment the water in the moat appeared to rush swiftly upwards, in wild uproar, fiercely confused, and covered with foam and spray. To her bewildered eyes, it seemed to heap itself up, wave upon furious wave, to reach the spot where she stood, greedy to engulf her. For an instant she fancied the storming billows pouring over the edge of the battlement, and started back in such momentary agony as we suffer in dreams. Then, by a sudden rectification of her vision, she perceived that what she saw was in reality a multitude of ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... restless waters. Sometimes he was on the top of a wave where he was able to see the far distant ship; then, with a smart buffeting, he would find himself at the bottom of a trough with, what looked like green mountains of water threatening to engulf him. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... paying crops. The colonists had not the patient skill needed for the task. Neither had they the means. Above all, they lacked the market where to dispose of their crops when once raised. Discouragements beset them. Debts threatened to engulf them. The trustees of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, entering the field eleven years later, in 1891, found of three hundred families only two-thirds remaining on their farms. In 1897, when they went to their relief, there were ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... plate was of two almost imperceptible layers of solid diamond between which was curiously worked a filigree of emerald design, a shaving sliced from green air. Music, plangent and unobtrusive, drifted down through far corridors—his chair, feathered and curved insidiously to his back, seemed to engulf and overpower him as he drank his first glass of port. He tried drowsily to answer a question that had been asked him, but the honeyed luxury that clasped his body added to the illusion of sleep—jewels, fabrics, wines, and metals blurred before his ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... the hectic of autumn. Diversity was observable in form rather than in tint, and from this resulted a remarkable effect of unity, a singleness of intention, and of far-reaching secrecy. The multitudinous leaves and the all-pervading green gloom of them around, above, seemed to engulf horses and riders. It was as though they rode across the floor of ocean, the green tides sweeping overhead. Yet the trees of the wood asserted their intelligent presence now and again. Audibly they talked ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... to lead me whither he would, following the impulse of his guiding arm like a blind man, for the shadow had closed in blacker than ever, to engulf me at last, and it seemed that my only escape from this horror was to grasp the kindly hand ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... makes even the lion-tamer fearless: these invalids buy their course tickets, entitling to cure, concert and ecarte; and they bathe and gamble and engulf their deadly draughts with the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... rose up like the tumult of many voices calling to her, calling to her. The depth beneath her feet widened to an abyss that yawned to engulf her. With a sick sense of horror she realized that ghastly, headlong fall—from warm, throbbing life on the enchanted height to instant and terrible destruction upon the green, slimy boulders over which the water dashed and roared continuously far below. Here he had sat, that arrogant lover ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... reluctant to do so, menace each other by threats and sabre-rattling, edging slowly forward, each hoping that his adversary will retreat rather than do battle"; but the Emperor's comparison was not exact, for one of these swordsmen had behind him a bottomless pit, ready to engulf him at the first backward step, so that having to choose between an ignominious death and a combat in which he might be successful he had to choose the latter. This was the situation in which Alexander found himself, a situation made worse by the influence ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... friends in the belly of whales, dies uttering a cry, and rises again at the end of three days; things absurd in themselves, and completely opposed, moreover, to all physical laws, which prove to us, by the way, that priests have always wallowed in turpid ignorance, in which they would fain engulf the people with them." ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... might yet have proved itself big enough to assimilate and engulf the entire mass of this already half-civilized people. Its name was still a spell on them. Ataulf, the successor of Alaric, was proud to accept a Roman title and become a defender of the Empire. He marched his followers into Gaul under a commission ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... sternly he resolved to sever these equivocal relations with a woman whom he could no longer respect. The weak, purblind man had been steeled against further temptation by seeing a few hours ago the abyss yawning at his feet, in which an illicit love had threatened to engulf him forever. The image of his mother, noble type of womanhood, rose before his mind, ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... journal, happily unconscious of its degraded state, is rapidly sinking beneath that treacherous mud which, while it seems to give it a firm standing with the low and debased classes of society, is nevertheless rising above its detested head, and will speedily engulf ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... requires a good quarter of an hour for the Indians to lure them to the foot of the staircase, and from the first it is plain that the crocodiles view with indifference your visit to Jeypore. The lower step is finally fringed with opened mouths which in a moment engulf a mass of slaughter-house refuse almost thrust down their throats by the wild-eyed showmen, whom you reward with a shower of rupees which they believe marks ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... had established, Ex. 15:1-21. The analogy requires that when this corresponding song is sung, the ransomed of the Lord shall have correspondingly witnessed the overthrow of the adversaries of Jehovah, and shall themselves have escaped from the perils of the many waters which had threatened to engulf them. ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... adroit combination. The plight of both Sisily and himself was desperate enough now without giving the enemy a chance by recklessness. He was like a man rowing a small boat in the immensity of a dark sea which threatened every moment to engulf him. Sisily was somewhere in that darkness, and she must be rescued. If his own cockleshell went down there could be no succour for her. That was a thought to make him keep afloat—to ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... was speedily felt in Europe. General Washington had been in the discharge of his duties as President about a month, when the States-General of France met in the famous convention which was to pull down the ancient French monarchy and engulf all Europe in seas of blood. The overtaxed and excitable Frenchmen were maddened by the contrast afforded in their sufferings and the blessings achieved by their late allies on the ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... contractor about how to build a rotunda in a hotel in Cuba, at the same time with his left hand on a drawer full of complicated notes on his philosophy of life, which with the other lobe of his brain he was traversing in order to engulf the interviewer as soon as the letter was finished. Shaughnessy never could have carried on such an interview, lasting four hours of a busy life. His talks to the press must be curt and comprehensive—or else elliptical. He had no exuding vivacity. When I talked ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... day after his departure, a long and lonely Sunday. She walked five miles by herself. She thought of the momently more horrible fact that vacation was over, that the office would engulf her again. She declared to herself that two weeks were just long enough holiday to rest her, to free her from the office; not long enough to begin to ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... that reached me—and with failing heart I knew the noise to be that of waves of the lake beating upon the wall within a few inches of my window, the dark waters which in due time would no doubt rise through my uneven floor and engulf me. Big grey rats ran about in search of fragments of food—of which there was none. I was a "political," and my food would certainly ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... a great breath. A warm flood seemed suddenly to engulf Philip. Did he hear right? Could he believe? He fell upon his knees beside Pierre and brushed his dark ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood

... shining sails; in a word, supplied with all such gear as may serve either for use or the delight of the eye. Imagine all this and then think how easily, if the tempest and no helmsman be her guide, the deep may engulf her or the reefs grind her to pieces with all her goodly gear. Again, when physicians enter a sick man's house to visit him, none of them bids the invalid be of good cheer on account of the exquisite balconies with which they ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... what awful loneliness could engulf the human spirit till he sat beside the fevered man in the vast solitude of the primeval forest, asking in his heart whether God ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... has been religion. The familiar illustrations are the Mohammedan conquests that swept victoriously across the Bosporus and conquered Constantinople, also across northern Africa, and surged into southern Europe over the Straits of Gibraltar and threatened for a time completely to engulf the Western civilization. Familiar modern illustrations are the Mahdist insurrections that have from time to time taxed the resources of the English in northern Africa. In the third place the land ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... hope." He smiled across at her. "So don't let us talk any more about the shadow. Only"—gently—"if I came nearer to you—the shadow might engulf you, too." He paused, then continued more lightly: "But if you'll forgive my barbarous incivility of Sunday, perhaps—perhaps I may be allowed to stand just on the outskirts of your life—watch you pass by on your road to fame, and toss ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... gloomy shadow. In the brightest days of prosperity—in the midst of health and wealth—how sentient is the poor human creature of thy neighbourhood! how instinctively aware that the floodgates of horror may be cast open, and the dark stream engulf him for ever and ever! Then is it not lawful for man to exclaim, 'Better that I had never been born!' Fool, for thyself thou wast not born, but to fulfil the inscrutable decrees of thy Creator; and how dost thou know that this dark principle is not, after all, thy best friend; ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... worship of one tribal god rather than many. From the desert the ancestors of the Hebrews brought strong bodies, inured to hardship, and a grim austerity that found frequent expression on the lips of their prophets and a response in the minds of the people, when luxury threatened to engulf them. They also inherited from their desert days those democratic ideas and high ideals of individual liberty which, enabled Elijah and Isaiah to stand up add champion the rights of the people even though it involved a public ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent

... then became, like the host of raving relatives and friends and lovers, a man insane. It was as if the common surfaces of life—the busy days, the labor, the tools, the houses—had been drawn aside like a curtain and revealed the terrific powers that engulf humanity. ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... daughter, married Mr. John Cropper in 1858, and here, too, in her house beside the Mersey, among fields and trees that still maintain a green though besmutted oasis in the busy heart of Liverpool, that girdles them now on all sides, and will soon engulf them, there were kindness and welcome for the little Tasmanians. She died a few years ago, mourned and missed by her own people—those lifelong neighbors who know truly what we are. Of the fifth daughter, Frances, "Aunt Fan," I may not speak, because she is still ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... a swift change came to David's face. His cheeks paled and his eyes dilated in terror. It was as if ahead of him he saw a yawning abyss, eager to engulf him. ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter

... still, dead water; in which we see the light of the lantern reflected as in a mirror. It is fearful to look on—so black and motionless: a sluggish pool, thick and treacherous, which seemingly would engulf us without so much as a wave or a bubble; and we are within a foot of its surface! We draw involuntarily back, and creep up the steep stair to the first level ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... were high up the mountain side, while at our feet an unfathomable abyss seemed ready to engulf us. A little later we were passing through a charming village with its cottages and graceful belfry, above which light fleecy clouds floated lazily. Farther on a great lake with its blue waters, so calm and clear, would blend with the glowing splendour of the setting sun. I cannot ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... yarn have I heard old salts spin of this special and favourite abode of the god of storms: how that the seas were so high that in the valleys between the wind was taken completely out of a ship's sails; then, fearful lest each successive wave would engulf her, her trembling crew see her up-borne with terrible force, and once more subject to the full fury of the blast: how that no bottom was to be reached by the heaviest of leads and the longest of lines,—and such-like awe-inspiring ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... untried, almost inconceivable region, or chaos; in venturing upon which, how difficult, yet how unspeakably important is it to know what course, of survey and conquest, is the true one; where the footing is firm substance and will bear us, where it is hollow, or mere cloud, and may engulf us! Teufelsdroeckh undertakes no less than to expound the moral, political, even religious Influences of Clothes; he undertakes to make manifest, in its thousandfold bearings, this grand Proposition, that Man's earthly interests ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... to escape so many dangers? Whither could we go? What hospitable land would receive us on its shores? My thoughts then reverted to our beloved country. Then starting suddenly from my reverie, I exclaimed: 'O terrible condition! that black and boundless sea resembles the eternal night which will engulf us! All those who surround me seem yet tranquil, but that fatal calm will soon be succeeded by the most frightful torments. Fools, what had we to find in Senegal, to make us trust to the most perfidious of elements! Did France not afford every necessary ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... about the iron fence, and surging past the big equestrian statue, could be heard the roar and din of the great city—that maelstrom which now seemed ready to engulf him. No sound of merry laughter reached him, only rumbling of countless wheels, the slow thud of never-ending, crowded stages lumbering over the cobbles, the cries of the hucksters selling hot corn, and the ceaseless scrapings of a ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... they were standing—one of the most exposed parts of the ship—it was difficult to keep one's feet, to say nothing of hearing anyone speak. There was a heavy sea running, and each approaching wave looked big enough to engulf the vessel, but as the mass of moving water reached the bow, the ship rose on it, light and graceful as a bird, shook off the flying spray as a cat shakes her fur after an unwelcome bath, and again drove ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... aeroplane sailed away, and was even now hanging over the inland sea, that lay fully four thousand feet below, its further shore hidden in what seemed to be a cloud, though it might prove to be a rising fog, fated to engulf both pursuing and pursued air craft in its baffling folds, and turn the comedy of the race into ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy

... and away we went, careering on before the fast-rising seas. Very glad we were that we had so fine a harbour to run for. The gale blew harder and harder, and the waves looked as if every instant they would engulf us; for we were now exposed to the whole roll of the German Ocean. On sailing in we were struck by the remarkable appearance of the flesh-coloured pinkish rocks, whose needle-shaped points rose up out of the water. We had, however, little time to notice ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston

... in great waters, the next instant might engulf her. "It's so curiously unlike you," she faltered. "If she had been a duchess—a very exquisite person, or somebody very clever—remember I ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... then, as Pythagoras held? Was this great earth, so 'stablished, so secure, A planet also? Did it also move Around the sun? If this were true, my friends, No revolution in this world's affairs, Not that blind maelstrom where imperial Rome Went down into the dark, could so engulf All that we thought we knew. We who believed In our own majesty, we who walked with gods As younger sons on this proud central stage, Round which the whole bright firmament revolved For our especial glory, must we creep Like ants upon our midget ball of dust ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes

... clutched her bosom, holding its heaving down so fiercely that her nails bruised it through her habit's cloth; for she felt that she had begun to rave already, and that the waves of such a tempest were arising as, if not quelled at their first swell, would sweep her from her feet and engulf her ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... the ancient Mother Earth, and she is dying. To the cliffs the waves are rolling, To the old man and his consort, To the two last living mortals. Now a flash—I saw them smiling, Then embracing, without speaking, Ever kissing. Night then—roaring, Did the flood engulf these beings. This I saw, and well I know now, That a kiss outweighs all language, Is, though mute, love's song of songs. And when words fail, then the singer Should be silent; therefore silent He returns now to the garden. On the stone steps ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... She was harassed by dreams, dreams of huge eyes that came closer and closer to her, that at last seemed to engulf her. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various

... the Maire of the arrondissement, though it was sprucely painted and decked with funeral cloth. The driver wore a huge black chapeau, a white cotton cravat, and thigh-boots, which, standing up stiffly as he sat, seemed to engulf him to ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... contemporaneous social movements with which they later find themselves allied. The most immediate help in this new campaign against the social evil will probably come thus indirectly from those streams of humanitarian effort which are ever widening and which will in time slowly engulf into their rising tide of enthusiasm for human betterment, even the victims of the ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams

... watch. Somewhere in the pile at least one element was coming to life, a metal arm reaching out for brother metal to engulf in ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner

... great roomy, clean kitchen of the deacon's house might be seen the lithe, comely form of Diana Pitkin presiding over the roaring great oven which was to engulf the armies of pies and cakes which were in due course of ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... brown houses and red temples half concealed in groves of golden bamboo and the glossy green of orange trees; moments when the boatmen lounged on the deck or hung exhausted over their oars were followed by grief, fierce struggles against the dreadful force of a whirlpool that threatened to engulf us. ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... have seen your roaring marts Engulf our aristocracy, Our poets, all who love the ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.

... eyes as they drew near the roaring breakers. The tide was running out strong. Such a wind as was then blowing would alone have enabled the boats to stem it. Tall basaltic cliffs rose up on either hand, while the foaming rollers, as they came in, appeared ready to engulf the two boats. Now the launch rose to the summit of a high sea, now downward she glided, the breakers hissing and foaming so close to her that it seemed impossible she could pass through the narrow opening between them in safety. Now a heavy mass of water came tumbling on board ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... why dost thou not open and engulf them in the fissures of thy vast abyss and caverns, and no longer display in the sight of heaven such a cruel and horrible ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... she has been my opponent. What is her interest in the Blind Spot and myself? Who is she? I cannot think of her as evil. She is too beautiful, too tender; her concern is so real. Sometimes I think of her as my protector, that it is she, and she alone who holds back the power which would engulf me. Once ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... It was a momentous predicament, but he must do the best he could in it. He was a man of nice honour, and he wished with all his heart that the earth would open and engulf him. "Eliza, my love, allow me to deal with this matter," he said, his voice taking a low, tender, considerate tone. "I will question the boy in another ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various

... authority and social order. Eastern Europe seemed to be a volcano on the very point of eruption. Unless something was speedily done to check the peril, it threatened to spread to other countries and even to engulf the ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing

... a coating of ice, on which I shall go this evening; perhaps it will break and engulf me; so much the better, for then, I hope, your suspicions would die ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... Sea and the Gulf of Siam. The northeast monsoon favored us, as we rushed like a race-horse over the turbulent sea, with a following gale,—the threatening waves appearing as if they would certainly engulf us if they could catch up with the stern of the ship. The Philippine Islands were given a wide berth, as we steered southward towards the equator. The cholera was raging among the group; and in illustration of the fact that misfortunes never come as single spies, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... under, down, downstairs. abandonar to abandon. abastecer to purvey, supply. abasto provisions. abatimiento abasement, dejection. abatir to throw down. abdicar to abdicate. abeto fir. abierto (from abrir) open. abismar to engulf, plunge. abismo abyss. abogado advocate, lawyer. abono manure, fertilizer. abrazar to embrace. abrazo embrace. abreviar to abridge. abrigo shelter. Abril m. April. abrir to open. abrumar to overwhelm. absolutista absolutist, ultra-conservative. absoluto ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... the shore towards the vessel—himself steering the boat, whilst Lieutenant Swan pulled the bow oar. The wind had now increased to such a hurricane as is only known in tropical climates, and the waves threatened every instant to engulf the frail bark. As they advanced, the danger became more and more urgent; the sea broke over them continually; nevertheless, they persevered, and strained every nerve to ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... of September, the Duchess of Berry learned, during the day, that a frightful tempest threatened to engulf a great number of fishing-boats which were coming toward port. Instantly she countermanded a ball that she was to give that evening. She proceeded in all haste to the point whence aid could be given to these unfortunates. ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... proud Erimon's sons A demon contrived to ensnare; And them did dread Satan engulf In the dark, fearful depths ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... wildly as ever. Squalls rapidly succeeding each other mingled sea and air in one sheet of spray, blinding the eyes of the helmsman; waves towering high above us, tossing up the foam from their crests towards the sky, threatened to engulf the vessel at every moment. When the squalls, breaking heavily on the vessel, caused her to heel over, and the negroes to tumble one against each other in the hold, the shrieks of the sufferers through the darkness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... pals if he only saw this goose-step work." This was an allusion to the fashion we had to employ in picking our steps on the lookout for holes. In this region the fair face of nature is distorted in every conceivable way with holes and ditches, some of the holes big enough to engulf a house, and it is no mere desire to avoid the water in these holes that compels us to pick our steps in this hell-swept part of the world; it is the first law of nature, self preservation, for many a poor lad has been done to ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... of it, just out of reach of its beams. They made sure that houses and farms and all inhabited places were emptied of people before the moving terror beams could engulf them. They went into the town of Maplewood itself and frantically made sure that nothing alive remained in it. They went on to ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... slim-bodied spruce, promised fair for his scheme. Back and forth, back and forth over its cushion of deep moss he passed, seeking for a treacherous place—a place wherein Shag would sink to the belly; where the sand-mud would grasp his legs like soft chains and hold him to his death, but not engulf the body—that must remain ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser

... behold the magnificence spread before you. Ocean expands at your feet like a carpet; the mountains resemble ampitheatres; heaven's ether is above them like the arching folds of a stage curtain. Here we may breathe the thoughts of God, as it were like a perfume. See! the angry billows which engulf the ships laden with men seem to us, where we are, mere bubbles; and if we raise our eyes and look above, all there is blue. Behold that diadem of stars! Here the tints of earthly impressions disappear; standing on this nature rarefied by ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... Expedition a long delay became necessary. Of course, the American press held high jubilee over this check, which was represented as only the beginning of the end of a series of disasters. The British Expedition was never destined to reach Red River—swamps would entrap it, rapids would engulf it; and if, in spite of these obstacles, some few men did succeed in piercing the rugged wilderness, the trusty rifle of the Metis would soon annihilate the presumptive intruders. Such was the news and such were ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... the tumbling waves on the Lido; the piled storm-clouds parting like a curtain above a dead Venice; and behind, the gleaming eternal Alps, sending their challenge to the sea—the forces that make the land, to the forces that engulf it. ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... bullet-torn tatter waved from one wide shoulder. Above prominent cheekbones, his eyes were hot and bright, his clipped beard pointed sharply from a jaw which must be grimly set, his face was flushed, and his energy and will was like a cloud to engulf the disheartened men as ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... book-form under the title The Two Maps, a rock-basis of general principles on which it may rest secure from the hurling waves of sensationalism, ignorance, misrepresentation and foolishness which are striving perpetually to engulf it. ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... but to press the bell on the other side of the fireplace to ensure the attendance of her cheerful servant. These comforting reflections availed her nothing, and a wave of fear advanced and threatened to engulf her. ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... of his master. Finding him wounded, he is overwhelmed with grief. Krishna tells him to go to Dwarka and inform the surviving Yadavas what has happened. On receiving the news they must leave Dwarka immediately, for the sea will shortly engulf it. They must also place themselves under Arjuna's protection and go to Indraprastha. 'Then the illustrious Krishna having united himself with his own pure, spiritual, inexhaustible and universal spirit abandoned his ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer

... night a circle of rockets was fired from the tower of St. Stephen's as a signal of distress. This done the wretched Viennese waited for the coming day, almost hopeless of repelling the hosts which threatened to engulf them. At the utmost a few days must end the siege. A single day ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... gallant master, in the performance of a duty which he, true to his responsibility, would intrust to no other, in such an hour as this,—that of guiding his storm-tossed bark among the frightful billows that were threatening every instant, to engulf her. Thus swiftly onward drove the seemingly devoted ship, strained, shivering, and groaning beneath the terrible power of the gale, like an over-ridden steed, as she dashed, yet unharmed, through the mist and spray and constantly-breaking white caps of the wildly-rolling deep; thus onward ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... of the visitors; built upon a mud-bank formed of Suez Canal dredgings, its existence is its most interesting feature, and the white breakers of the Mediterranean, above which it is so little raised, seem ever ready to engulf it as they toss and tumble ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly

... them to emerge, but they had apparently settled to more of this high-handed talk. Then, like an icy wave to engulf him, came a name—"Tommy Hollins." It came in the Demon's voice, indistinguishable words preceding it. And in the flapper's voice came "Tommy Hollins!" gently, caressingly, it seemed. In truth, the flapper had sniffed before uttering it, and the sniff had meant good-natured contempt ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... penuriousness are still keeping many people in the trenches. But they will be dislodged. Just as sure as fate they will be driven from cover. They are fighting a losing battle. They are standing in the way of an irresistible movement that is sure to engulf them. If there were time I should like to describe just what is being done along this line in some places and give the reflex influence of the same on the community. It has surely meant a new heaven and a new earth ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... penis throbbing lustily against the clitoris when the two meet at the extreme of the wife's up-stroke; she, pausing an instant, just then, to more perfectly enjoy the sensation; the penis slipping past the now wide open vaginal mouth, which reaches out at every down stroke to engulf it—dallying, delaying, coquetting, tantalizing, both man and woman; playing the game in almost a swoon of ecstatic delight—under such conditions the wife's passion will rush to its fullest development, ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long

... war up to this stage had revealed the hopeless depravity of the senatorial government, its subsequent course revealed what shape the revolution about to engulf that government would assume. The consulship of Marius, won in spite of Metellus, signified really the fall of the Republic and the rise of monarchy, while the rivalry of Marius and Sulla showed that supreme authority would be competed for, not in the forum but the camp. ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... their presence nor the sight of an occasional mutile (soldier who has lost a limb), pathetically clumsy on his new crutches, quite sent home the presence of the war. The normal life of the city was powerful enough to engulf the disturbance, the theaters were open, there were the same crowds on the boulevards, and the same gossipy spectators in the sidewalk cafes. After a year of war the Parisians were accustomed to soldiers, cripples, and people in ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... think to myself: Well, I'm very glad I'm not a fish; for just as I would be watching some lovely mackerel-like fellow with a flashing back of mottled blue and purple, some monster ten times his size would make a dart at him and engulf him in his capacious throat. And as I watched the larger fish seize their food, it seemed to me that once they could get within easy range they seemed to suck their prey into their jaws, drawing it in with the great rush of water they sent ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn

... should attempt to turn the boat broadside to the waves in such a gale. The only possible salvation for him was to cut the approaching billows with the bows of the boat. Thus he might possibly ride over them, though at the imminent peril, every moment, of shipping a sea which would engulf him and his frail ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... reminded him evenly, "the first hint that you are a millionaire masquerading as a native will engulf you ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... is barred. The hand of man has dared to check the will of one that up to now has known no curb save those the forest gods imposed. For an instant the waters, taken aback by this strange audacity, hold themselves in leash. Then, like erl-king in the German legends, they broaden out to engulf their opponent. In vain they surge with crescent surface against the barrier of stone. By day, by night, they beat and breast in angry impotence against the ponderous wall of masonry that man has reared, for pleasure and profit, to ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... answer of the engineer, who had caught hold of and made a lodgment in a tree-top, and around whom the waters were still rapidly rising, sending floating logs, trees, and driftwood against his frail support, and threatening momentarily to dislodge and engulf him. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... crept through the darkness, followed by a black overwhelming shadow which threatened to engulf him in its depths. Still swaying, he waited for it calmly. All at once it was upon him, but swiftly receded. He seemed to sway backward out of it, and as he looked back upon it, gathering its forces ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... as a rule, some thousands of miles across. The umbra of a good-sized spot could indeed engulf at once many bodies the size ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... ones I exclude are the rose-coloured ones; but scarlet, gold, delicate pink, and white are all there, and the effect is infinitely enchanting. The forget-me-nots grow taller as the tulips go off, and will presently tenderly engulf them altogether, and so hide the shame of their decay in their kindly little arms. They will be left there, clouds of gentle blue, until the tulips are well withered, and then they will be taken away to make room for the scarlet geraniums that are to occupy these two beds ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim

... which is the test. Is the man sure enough of himself to leave everything behind, and jump over the precipice into the unknown? If ever he wishes to return to what he has left, he will have just the height of this jump to climb back to the old place. The old place is a certainty. The unknown may engulf in failure. He {178} must chance that, and all for the sake of a faith in himself, which has not yet been justified; for the sake of a vague star leading into the misty unknown. He knows that he could have been successful in the old place. He does not know that he may ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... the background the collapse of a great civilization. One can tell from his discourses when the barbarians began to move on Rome. One can hear the crash when Alaric and his hordes sacked the Eternal City. One can catch the accent of horror at the tidal waves of anarchy that everywhere swept in to engulf the falling empire. "Horrible things," said Augustine, "have been told us. There have been ruins, and fires, and rapine, and murder, and torture. That is true; we have heard it many times; we have shuddered at all this ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... penetrating emotion. She felt as though something around her in which she had moved safely, was cracking; with a sudden and terrible lucidity she saw herself marching forward, powerless to draw back, marching helplessly towards an abyss—an abyss which was about to engulf her! She trembled, trembled violently. She was encompassed by vague ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... his own. Happiness, like no happiness he had ever known should be his. And yet—hovering over him like a pall—black, ominous, depressing—was the thing that momentarily threatened to descend and engulf him, to destroy this new-found happiness, haunt him with its diabolical presence, ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... warmth and light while that other creature, of as simply human cravings, battled her way along from cliff to cliff, with the sea of doom below, beating against the land that was so arid to her and waiting only to engulf her? That, he thought, was another count in his indictment against the ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... Partha, more grieved than they, addressed those grieving and cheerless citizens and officers who were more dead than alive, and said these words that were well suited to the occasion: I shall take away with me the remnants of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas. The sea will soon engulf this city. Equip all your cars and place on them all your wealth. This Vajra (the grandson of Krishna) will be your king at Shakraprastha. On the seventh day from this, at sunrise, we shall set out. Make your preparations ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... so. Had it been otherwise, had he tried to get away or fluttered, there would have been no more of him. That is to say, the head of the seal came up—or its wet and suggestive big nose did—and poked about, trying to find the bird. It had evidently meant to grab him, to engulf him utterly and forever in the first rush; but something—some unlooked-for lift of a wave or turn of the bird—had made the shot miss, or nearly miss, so that the bird had been hit by the bloated six-footer's nose, instead of being crushed in its teeth—its terrible ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... neutralising their poisonous products); (3) the extermination of the intrusive, disease-producing microbes by a kind of police, which scour the blood channels and tissues and "eat up"—actually engulf and digest—the hostile intruders. These latter agents, actual particles of the living animal in which they exist, are the "eater-cells," or "phagocytes"—minute, viscid, actively moving cells, resembling the animalcules called "amoeba." They are only the one two-thousandth of an inch in diameter, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... they again faced the west, the rain came beating furiously down against the wind-shield so that the road ahead was barely visible. Never had she seen such blinding sheets of water. It tore at the roof, it whipped about the curtains, it threatened to engulf them all in a torrential flood. The car was moving slowly forward—she could see Joe's outline bent slightly over the wheel—and in spite of his care the rear wheels would slew gently from side to side. As she peered ahead ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... with great care a succession of small rocky islands that appeared to be uninhabited. As we proceeded, the weather became rough and tempestuous, the sea running so high that it sometimes threatened to engulf us. During the whole of our voyage we had not met with ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... the swirling eddies beneath us the smoke began suddenly to pile itself up in an enormous aerial mountain, whose peaks shot higher and higher, with apparently increasing velocity, until they seemed about to engulf us with their tumbling ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss

... from each of the camps, squads of khaki-clad men bearing transit and level, stake and pole and flag—the weapons of their warfare—put out in different directions into the vast silence that seemed to engulf them. Every evening the squads returned, desert-stained and weary, to their rest under the lonesome stars. Every morning the sun broke fiercely up from the long level of the eastward plain to pour its hot strength down upon these pigmy creatures, who dared to invade the territory ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... were the little waves of the sheep-tracks, then the gentle rollers of the moss-hags, and, last of all, certain black dangerous Maelstroms from which last year's peats had been dug, in which a moment's folly on the part of Neddy or Teddy might engulf ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... justifies the means that he adopts, and he is no respecter of persons. He does not even respect the person of his wife. The love of Mariamne is the one sure rock upon which he can rest when the earthquake, threatening at every moment, comes to shatter his throne and engulf him. He loves her too with a passion which dreams of union so perfect that death cannot break it, so perfect that one of them would wish to die at the moment when the soul of the other left the body. This is Mariamne's dream also, but Herod cannot ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... was going to happen, and he could say almost to a certainty whether any storm was coming to turn these silent deserts into storm-tossed oceans of sand, which more ruthless even than the sea, would engulf all living things within their pitiless depths. He knew, moreover, where the hidden springs of water lay concealed beneath the glare and glitter that pained the eyes simply to look upon them; and without a solitary landmark in the ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan

... his white handkerchief, saw his family carried far out to sea as if to another world, and he longed for some yawning earthquake to engulf him. He stood transfixed to the dock; the perspiration of excitement, now checked, was chilling him when Gertrude caught his arm and said, "Father, what ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... shock of sacrifice threatened his whole career, and his life and mind as well. Again the monastery beckoned him, and now it was his mother's turn to oppose the Church in its effort to engulf this brilliant artist. After a long struggle he yielded to her, but for a time he was a recluse, and his melancholy gradually wore out his health; until at length he was given up for a dying man, and obituary eulogies actually were published. But as Mark Twain wrote of himself: "The ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... hailed our gloomy prison, which now presented itself, and we looked upon it almost with joy. From the darkness of the night we could scarcely discern the dim outline of its lofty walls and ponderous gates, as they swung open, grating upon their hinges, to engulf a fresh supply of misery within that sepulchre of the living. We were now thrust into a building, reeking wet and benumbed with cold. All was in total darkness, and we were in dread of breaking some ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... Theriere was dragging himself painfully to his hands and knees, as though to attempt the impossible feat of crawling back to the cabin hatch. The wave was almost upon Billy. In a moment it would engulf him, and then rush on across him to tear Theriere from the deck and hurl him beyond the ship into the tumbling, watery, ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the Flying Fish leaped a wave like a horse taking a barrier. At last, however, their task was completed, and the improvised spray hood served to some extent to break the waves that now threatened momentarily to engulf the laboring craft. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson

... All ordinary reasoning is set at naught and common sense goes astray. The nearness of the unknown and unapproachable ocean; the ever varying and menacing sounds that issue from it; the leaping and curling billows that, like white and black demons, seem trying to engulf the earth and make even the rocks tremble—all have a weird and uncanny influence. In their presence the imagination runs riot and the ghostly and supernatural usurp reason. Spectral shapes crawl out of ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn



Words linked to "Engulf" :   enfold, rivet, focus, drink, pore, concentrate, wrap, centre, engross, enclose, plunge, absorb, enwrap, steep, soak up, immerse, center, envelop



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