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Phalanx   Listen
noun
Phalanx  n.  (pl. phalanxes, L. phalanges)  
1.
(Gr. Antiq.) A body of heavy-armed infantry formed in ranks and files close and deep. There were several different arrangements, the phalanx varying in depth from four to twenty-five or more ranks of men. "In cubic phalanx firm advanced." "The Grecian phalanx, moveless as a tower."
2.
Any body of troops or men formed in close array, or any combination of people distinguished for firmness and solidity of a union. "At present they formed a united phalanx." "The sheep recumbent, and the sheep that grazed, All huddling into phalanx, stood and gazed."
3.
A Fourierite community; a phalanstery.
4.
(Anat.) One of the digital bones of the hand or foot, beyond the metacarpus or metatarsus; an internode.
5.
(Bot.) A group or bundle of stamens, as in polyadelphous flowers.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Phalanx" Quotes from Famous Books



... spirit, and perhaps environment and personnel of teacher, and possibly somewhat in season of the year, almost as sharply as work differs from play, or perhaps as the virility of man that loves to command a phalanx, be a martinet and drill-master, differs from femininity which excels in persuasion, sympathetic insight, story-telling, and in the tact that discerns and utilizes ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... momentous in the history of Canada. Lower Canada was vehemently opposed to the whole scheme. To elect a Union member was, in the words of the Quebec Committee, 'stretching forth the neck to the yoke which is attempted to be placed upon us.' The French were organized into a solid phalanx of opposition. In the western province the Tory and Orange opposition was equally violent towards a measure which was deemed to favour the French. The elections of 1841 were held with the bad old-fashioned accompaniments of riot ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan

... better of the advice of Archelaus tried to prolong the war. Archelaus, indeed, seems to have commanded in the battle, for Mithridates was shrewd enough to know when he had a good general. He drew up his army in four lines, the scythed chariots in front, behind them the Macedonian phalanx, then his auxiliaries, including Italian deserters, and, lastly, his light-armed troops. On each flank he posted his cavalry. [Sidenote: Sulla's arrangements.] Sulla, who was weak in cavalry, dug two ditches guarded by forts, one on each flank, so as to keep off the enemy's horse. Then he drew ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... for less than an hour, it was hot and spirited throughout, and the valiant phalanx of 70 men who held their own under such trying circumstances, in the face of fully 800 veteran soldiers, fully deserve the greatest honor and credit that can be given by the Canadian people, and are well worthy of having their heroic deeds handed down to posterity on the ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... capital. He made no wars of detachments, but threw a colossal force across the frontier, held its mass together, and fought pitched battles day after day, until he trampled down all resistance by the mere weight of a phalanx of 250,000 men. Thus, in 1800, at Marengo, he reconquered Italy in twelve hours. In 1805, he broke down Austria in a three months' war. In 1806, he crushed the Prussian army in four-and-twenty hours, and walked over the monarchy. In 1807, he drove the Russians ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... was still too dense to be riven by slanting sunbeams. It closed again in solider phalanx. Our gray cell shut close about us. Esquihos and the distance became nowhere. In fact, ourselves would have been nowhere, except that a sluggish damp wind puffed sometimes, and steering into this we could guide our way within a few points ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... new field of study and observation. I diligently read and meditated the Memoires Militaires of Quintus Icilius, the only writer who has united the merits of a professor and a veteran. The discipline and evolution of a modern battalion gave me a clearer notion of the phalanx and the legion, and the captain of the Hampshire grenadiers (the reader may smile) has not been useless to the historian of the Roman Empire." No one can doubt it who compares Gibbon's numerous narratives of military operations with the ordinary ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... of the distal phalanx of the second finger of the left hand above the root of the nail with lint and ether. Wind the rubber tubing tightly round the second phalanx; puncture with a sterile Hagedorn needle through ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... astride his neck, the bewildered provincial with his foolish, dazed expression, the groom, barely shaved and still spreading the perfume of the stable. And the foreigners dressed like monkeys, English women like giraffes, the water-carrier, cleaned up for the occasion, and the innumerable phalanx of little bourgeois, inoffensive little people, amused at everything. All this crowding and pressing, the sweat and dust, and the turmoil, all these eddies of human flesh, trampling of corns beneath the feet of your neighbors, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... walking briskly, overtakes slower walkers ahead, and the crowd allows no space to get past them, one should watch for a chance to slip through a gap in the phalanx, rather than "elbow through." If no chance seems likely to occur, and haste is imperative, a polite man has no recourse but to step outside the curb and walk rapidly ahead, returning to the sidewalk a few paces in advance. ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... and others—few compared to the indifferent and avowed defenders of slavery, welcoming outrage and ostracism, by pen and on forum, from hilltop and valley, proclaimed emancipation as the right of the slave and the duty of the master. The many heroic efforts of the anti-slavery phalanx were not without effect, and determined resistance was made to the admission of more slave territory which was in accordance with the "Proviso" prohibiting slavery in the Northwest. Slavery controlled the Government from its commencement, ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... away, and Charteris turned his attention again to the field, where the Rani, supported by a lessening phalanx of her men, was steadily cutting her way towards Sher Singh. Watching through his glass, the Englishman saw a movement in the gilded howdah of the Rajah's elephant, saw that a man in gleaming crimson and a golden turban ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... of employment for his sunny ways in placating his disappointed colleagues. In time there were consolation prizes for all, for this one a judgeship, for that one a lieutenant-governorship, for the next a life seat in the senate; the phalanx of fighting second-raters who had done valuable work in opposition, reinforcing and buttressing the work of the front benches disappeared gradually from parliament. And with those he chose he too had his way, as ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe

... encounter incessant showers of stones, splashing of oars, with frequent gashes from a harpoon or spear, while the din created by the shouts of the boats' crews and the multitude on shore, was tremendous. On more than one occasion, however, the floating phalanx was broken, and it required the greatest activity and tact ere the breach could be repaired and possession of the fugitives regained. The shore was neared by degrees, the boats advancing and retreating by turns, till at length they succeeded in driving ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various

... women, who can be said to have any mind, must thus be inveigled to think lightly of the thing they are about to lose. Granted. And yet the difference is infinite. They are brought to think thus lightly of chastity: but, should you or any one of the gallant phalanx attempt to make Anna St. Ives so think, she would presently cry buzz to the dull blockhead, and give him his ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... national arms, and in their own national battle array, that they had overcome weapons and tactics long believed to be invincible. The pilum and the broadsword had vanquished the Macedonian spear. The legion had broken the Macedonian phalanx. Even the elephants, when the surprise produced by their first appearance was over, could cause no disorder in the steady yet flexible battalions of Rome. It is said by Florus, and may easily be believed, that the triumph far surpassed in magnificence any that Rome had previously seen. The ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... dog has five toes on the fore feet, and four on the hind feet, with a mere rudiment of a fifth metatarsal bone in some feet; but, in others, the fifth bone is long and well proportioned, and advances as far as the origin of the first phalanx ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... and the ministry appeared as the central phalanx of the pure royalists. As their auxiliaries, they had the old nobility,—the priesthood,—a certain number of apostates who had skulked away from the imperial government,—and lastly, all those who had been disqualified by their incapacity and disloyalty from obtaining employment under Napoleon. ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... upon the bedchamber, let the falling roof offer fuel for the flames and serve to feed the fire. It is right to scatter conflagration on the doomed gates. But let us who honour our king with better loyalty form the firm battle-wedges, and, having measured the phalanx in safe rows, go forth in the way the king taught us: our king, who laid low Rorik, the son of Bok the covetous, and wrapped the coward in death. He was rich in wealth, but in enjoyment poor, stronger in gain than bravery; and thinking gold better ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... near Plataea. The light-armed undisciplined Persians, whose bodies were unprotected by armour, maintained a very unequal combat against the serried ranks, the long spears, and the mailed bodies of the Spartan phalanx. Mardonius, at the head of his body-guard of 1000 picked men, and conspicuous by his white charger, was among the foremost in the fight, till struck down by the hand of a Spartan. The fall of their general ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... University, heads of houses and professors, have no more voting power than the young men who have just taken their degrees, nay, have in reality less influence than these young Masters, who always meet together and form a kind of compact phalanx when votes are to be taken. There was even a Non-placet club, ready to throw out any measure that seemed to emanate from the reforming party, or threatened to change any established customs, whether beneficial or otherwise to the University. The University, ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... took up his winter quarters in Phocis and Locris. In the following year (B.C. 197) the struggle was brought to a termination by the battle of Cynoscephalae (Dogs' Heads), a range of hills near Scotussa, in Thessaly. The Roman legions gained an easy victory over the once formidable Macedonian phalanx: 8000 Macedonians were killed and 5000 taken prisoners, while Flamininus lost only 700 men. Philip was obliged to sue for peace, and in the following year (B.C. 196) a treaty was ratified by which the Macedonians were compelled to renounce their ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... might seek to improve this scene into a sort of justifiable necessity for the King's quitting Versailles and withdrawing to Metz, and to prevent at the same time the consequences that might ensue between the Garde du Corps and this phalanx of men and women, he forwarded expresses to the King, that he was on his march to Versailles, by the orders of the civil authority of Paris, for the purpose of peace and protection, expressing at the same time the necessity of restraining the Garde ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... turned to make his way back, but he saw that this was not to be his road for retreat. Behind him the movable phalanx had again formed itself into close rank, but before him the wailing wearers of the white shirts were preparing for the commotion of his passage by grasping the upright stick of their movable desks in ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... the workers appeared in a solid phalanx; the foreman of the works chose those he had need of, and the rest were free to depart. At home sat their wives and children, cheered by the possibility of work; the men felt no inclination to go home with bad news, so they loafed about ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... and persecutions has preserved the individuality of the Hebrew race; that love of independence that under the most adverse circumstances has characterized the Jew; that burning patriotism that flamed up in the Maccabees and bared the breasts of Jewish peasants to the serried steel of Grecian phalanx and the resistless onset of Roman legion; that stubborn courage that in exile and in torture has held the Jew to his faith. It kindled that fire that has made the strains of Hebrew seers and poets phrase for ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... jail; and in the hard week that followed Denver learned what he meant, for the wheels of the law began to grind. First the District Attorney, in making his charge, denounced him like a mad-man; then he brought on his witnesses, a solid phalanx, and put them through their parts; and every point of law that Denver's attorney brought up he tore it to pieces in an instant. He knew more law in a minute than the lawyer would learn in a life-time, ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... and method of modern war. It is more difficult in its nature from war as it was waged in the nineteenth century than that was from the nature of the phalanx or the legion. The nucleus fact—when I talked to General Joffre he was very insistent upon this point—is still as ever the ordinary fighting man, but all the accessories and conditions of his personal encounter with the fighting man of the other side have been revolutionised in a ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... who led us in this House. Far from the duplicity wickedly charged on him, he acted his part with alacrity and resolution. We all felt inspired by the example he gave us, down even to myself, the weakest in that phalanx. I declare for one, I knew well enough (it could not be concealed from any body) the true state of things; but, in my life I never came with so much spirits into this House. It was a time for a man to act in. We had powerful enemies; but we had faithful and determined ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... What a happy place for children to grow up in! Would it not suit little —— to go to school to the cardinal flowers in her boat, beneath the great oak-tree? I think she would learn more than in a phalanx of juvenile florists. But, truly, why has such a thing never been? One of these valleys so immediately suggests an image of the fair company that might fill it, and live so easily, so naturally, so wisely. Can we not people the banks of some such affectionate little stream? I distrust ambitious ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... they acted, Those chieftains twain In wedge-like phalanx. Chased were the East Wends Into a corner narrow, Not easy for the LaesirsSec. Was the law ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson

... little houses of entertainment were what struck one as really making most for mildness, was brushed over with a fabled grace, was harmonious, felicitous, distinguished, quite after the fashion of some thoroughly trained chorus or phalanx of opera or ballet. Bicycles were stacked up by the hundred; the youth of Rome are ardent cyclists, with a great taste for flashing about in more or less denuded or costumed athletic and romantic bands and ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... take the liberty to remark, that it augurs a very considerable degree of presumption in any individual, to set himself up against the authority of so many great men, as may be marshalled in metaphysical phalanx under the opposite banners of the controversy; such as Aristotle, Plato, the scholiast on Aristophanes, St Chrysostom, St Jerome, St Athanasius, Orpheus, Pindar, Simonides, Gronovius, Hemsterhusius, Longinus, Sir Isaac Newton, Thomas Paine, Doctor Paley, the King of Prussia, the ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... and faded out of it altogether in the latter half; objected to pass from the notice of the audience in that manner, when all the rest had a chance of distinguishing themselves to the end; shut up the book, apologized, and retired. In eight days more the night of performance would arrive; a phalanx of social martyrs two hundred strong had been convened to witness it; three full rehearsals were absolutely necessary; and two characters in the play were not filled yet. With this lamentable story, and with the humblest ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... was to Europe—a half-unknown and barbarous land, full of latent energy and power, and waiting for the rise of a master mind to discern its embryo greatness and turn its peasants into the unconquerable phalanx. Alexander must arise to carry forth with his victorious arms the seeds of Greek civilization over the Eastern world. Aristotle must arise to gather up in one boundless mind the vast results of Greek philosophy, and found an empire vaster and more enduring than ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... I been doing? Doesn't he want you to grow up as one who hates fighting, and a lover of peace? And here have I been teaching you how to use the sword and spear and shield, making of you one who knows how to lead a phalanx to the fight—a man of war. What would ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn

... candidate, but the Roman Catholic Bishop, Dr. Lennan, met and repulsed the intruder in militant fashion. "Mr. Bell," he reports to Archbishop Troy, "declined the poll, and surrendered yesterday. The Catholics stuck together like the Macedonian phalanx, and with ease were able to turn the scale in favour of the Chancellor of ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... Romans, a shield, which covered the body more effectually, and a javelin, a much more forcible weapon than the spear, either in throwing or striking. The soldiers, on both sides, were used to steady combat, and to preserve their ranks. But the Macedonian phalanx was unapt for motion, and composed of similar parts throughout: the Roman line less compact, consisting of several various parts, was easily divided as occasion required, and as easily conjoined. Then what soldier is comparable to the Roman in ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... members placed together one by one according to their relative situations: the eye, the nose, and other features composed a face, but the expression of feelings and passions was entirely wanting; and the countenance of the King, whether charging an enemy's phalanx in the heat of battle, or peaceably offering incense in a sombre temple, presented the same outline and the same inanimate look. The peculiarity of the front view of an eye, introduced in a profile, is thus accounted for: it was the ordinary ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... vigorous portrait, Mary Monson, and several 'moving accidents by flood and field:' but with these positive qualities the reader had to accept an unlimited stock of negatives. Besides the works thus referred to, Cooper wrote at short intervals a 'serried phalanx' of others, from the ranks of which suffice it to name The Heidenmauer, The Bravo, The Manikins (a weak and injudicious tale, quite unworthy of his honourable reputation), The Headsman of Berne, Mercedes of Castille, Satanstoe, Home as Found, Ashore and Afloat. In miscellaneous literature his ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers

... phalanx of autocracy, twenty-four nations arrayed themselves. Populations of these twenty-eight warring nations far exceeded the total population of all the remainder of humanity. The conflagration of war literally belted the earth. It consumed the most civilized ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... if he formed it, he would certainly start it amidst immense clapping of hands, yet he could not have any reasonable prospect of stable parliamentary support; on the one hand would stand Derby with his phalanx, on the other Lord J. Russell, of necessity a centre and nucleus of discontent, and between these two there would and could be no room for a parliamentary majority such as would uphold his government. He argued only rather faintly the other way, and seemed rather ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... the advancing guardsmen were beaten back. All the energies of the British were concentrated upon scaling the breastworks, which one daring officer had already mounted. But Lafitte and his followers, seconding a gallant band of volunteer riflemen, formed a phalanx which it was impossible ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... put down all idle passion, And look the growing tempest in the face, As doth the pilot of an Admiral Galley:[438] 80 Yet (wouldst thou think it, kinsman?) it hath been A greater struggle to me, than when nations Beheld their fate merged in the approaching fight, Where I was leader of a phalanx, where Thousands were sure to perish—Yes, to spill The rank polluted current from the veins Of a few bloated despots needed more To steel me to a purpose such as made Timoleon immortal,[439] than to face The toils and dangers of a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... you, David, that there are other conquests to be achieved in the present age more important than winning Palestine from the Moslem; that there is more real fighting to be done than all the true soldiers of the cross, even were they to be united in one firm phalanx, could accomplish? Sword and spear surely are not the weapons our loving Saviour desires His followers to employ when striving to bring fresh subjects under His kingdom. That they were to be used was indeed the idea of our ignorant ancestors, when the teaching of a corrupt Church ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... "introduced me to the science of Tactics" and led to the study of "the precepts of Polybius and Caesar." In this connection occurs the remark which admirers of Gibbon will never tire of citing: "A familiar view of the discipline and evolutions of a modern battalion gave me a clearer notion of the Phalanx and the Legion; and the Captain of the Hampshire Grenadiers (the reader may smile) has not been useless to the historian of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire."[98] The grand tour followed his militia service. Three and a half months ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... obvious reasons, delighted just at present to humour. George, however, in no wise shared his aunt's expansiveness in this direction, if only that it meant that Lilith was promptly surrounded by an adoring phalanx, even as on ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... James's Theatre is the home of the Classical Drama, for the themes of its plays seldom go back beyond the later decades of the 19th century A.D., and I can only conclude that it is meant to indicate that the conquests of Sir GEORGE ALEXANDER'S company resemble those of the famous phalanx ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various

... is spoiled, their march stopped by the arrival of the Egyptians. Pharaoh's edict is proclaimed in a musical phrase, hollow and dread, which is the leading motif of the finale; we could fancy that we hear the tramp of the great Egyptian army, surrounding the sacred phalanx of the true God, curling round it, like a long African serpent enveloping its prey. But how beautiful is the lament of the duped and disappointed Hebrews! Though, in truth, it is more Italian than Hebrew. What a superb passage introduces Pharaoh's arrival, when his presence brings ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac

... 1915; to all intents and purposes the battle of the Dunajec, as such, was over, and the initial aim of the Germanic offensive has been attained. The Russian line was pierced and its defense shattered. Von Mackensen's "Phalanx" was advancing two mighty tentacles guided by a master mind, remorselessly probing for the enemy's strongest points. Its formation comprised, in the northeastern tentacle, the Sixth Austro-Hungarian Army Corps and the Prussian Guards; in the southern, the Bavarians ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... Phoenicia and Carthage had not approached its shores. From the footsteps of the ancient nations along the highways of time and fortune—the embattled millions of the old Asiatic despotisms, the iron phalanx of Macedonia, the living, crushing machinery of the Roman legion which ground the world to powder, the heavy tramp of barbarous nations from "the populous north"—not the faintest echo had aroused the slumbering West in the cradle of her existence. Not a thrill of sympathy had shot across the Atlantic ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... have the old 'Tyne.'" The "Tyne" is a superannuated lifeboat which is kept under lock and key. The key was refused, and the men who demanded it were implored not to tempt Providence. Thereupon they coolly formed themselves into a phalanx, rushed against the door, burst it in, hauled the old "Tyne" ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... left them. But the driver remembered, and checked his horses in good time; and there were the men still, but in even greater number than before, stretching farther up Broadway and farther out along the side street. They stood slouched in dim and solemn phalanx under the night sky, so seasonably, clear and frostily atwinkle with Christmas-week stars; two by two they stood, slouched close together, perhaps for their mutual warmth, perhaps in an unconscious effort to get near the door where the loaves were to be given out, in time to share ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the vote be taken by rising. The Chairman read the resolution accordingly, and requested those who were in favor of adopting it, to rise. Not an individual in the crowded congregation kept his seat. The masters and the slaves of yesterday—all rose together—a phalanx of freemen, to testify "their sincere sympathy" in the efforts and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... the weapon. A youth beforehand enough with the world to be building bridges should know that, when all our troops are provided with such an arm, then will their platoons in serried ranks be as a solid wall breathing fire, and as impregnable as the lines of English archers with long bows, or the phalanx of Macedon. And, when each man bears a pistol instead of the misericorde, his life will be far more ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... shallow river. Not one of those veiled threats and intimations had he confided to Creede, for the orders from Judge Ware had been for peace and Jeff was hot-headed and hasty; but in his own mind Hardy pictured a solid phalanx of sheep, led by Jasp Swope and his gun-fighting Chihuahuanos, drifting relentlessly in over the unravaged mesa. Even that he could endure, trusting to some appeal or protest to save him from the ultimate disaster, but the strain of this ominous waiting was more than Hardy's nerves ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... the monarch march'd before, And found Menestheus on the dusty shore, With whom the firm Athenian phalanx stands; And next Ulysses, with his subject bands. Remote their forces lay, nor knew so far The peace infringed, nor heard the sounds of war; The tumult late begun, they stood intent To watch the motion, dubious of the event. The king, who saw their squadrons yet ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... enclosed extract from my letter of May the 27th, 1786, will, I fear, have very mischievous effects. It will tend to draw on the Count de Vergennes the formidable phalanx of the Farms; to prevent his committing himself to me in any conversation which he does not mean for the public papers; to inspire the same diffidence into all other ministers, with whom I might have to transact business; to defeat the little hope, if ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Browning was thus standing alone in his view of the matter, while Edward Barrett had to all appearance on his side a phalanx of all the sanities and respectabilities, there came suddenly a new development, destined to bring matters to a crisis indeed, and to weigh at least three souls in the balance. Upon further examination of Miss Barrett's condition, the physicians had declared that it was ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... these men have misinterpreted him, being deceived by his calamities, and he therefore is thrown on the defensive, and becomes his own attorney, pleading for his life. "Pray you, my friends, do not misjudge me," is his tearful plea, while they press their cruel conclusions as a phalanx of spears against his naked breast. This conception will clear Job of the blame of being self-righteous. I do not find that in his utterances; but do find sturdy self-respect, and assertion of pure motive and pure action; for his argument proceeds thus: "I know my heart; I know all ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... of wood for shafts; and I will uphold, that, according to the best usages of war, a strong battalion of pikes, drawn up in the fashion of the Lion of the North, the immortal Gustavus, would beat the Macedonian phalanx, of which I used to read in the Mareschal-College, when I studied in the ancient town of Bon-accord; and further, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... young AZIM!—thou hast braved The bands of GREECE, still mighty tho' enslaved; Hast faced her phalanx armed with all its fame,— Her Macedonian pikes and globes of fame, All this hast fronted with firm heart and brow, But a more perilous trial waits thee now,— Woman's bright eyes, a dazzling host of eyes From every land where woman smiles or sighs; Of every hue, as Love may chance ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... leaving out the needless vowels, You save the charge of lime and trowels. One letter still another locks, Each grooved and dovetail'd like a box; Thy muse is tuckt up and succinct; In chains thy syllables are linkt; Thy words together tied in small hanks, Close as the Macedonian phalanx;[2] Or like the umbo[3] of the Romans, Which fiercest foes could break by no means. The critic, to his grief will find, How firmly these indentures bind. So, in the kindred painter's art, The shortening is the nicest part. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... for having had to pay for it by bitterly disparaging it. Deslauriers believed in Frederick's statement on the point, and expressed approval of his conduct, for he had always been ambitious of constituting a phalanx of which he would be the leader. Certain men take delight in making their friends do things which are disagreeable ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... would have been sterile, had not a solid phalanx of jurists, Russian, German, Hungarian, Italian, and American, fertilised the germ by correcting hasty and one-sided conclusions, suggesting opportune reforms and applications, and, most important of all, applying my ideas on the offender to ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... emerging from the house, offered Selwyn tonneau room, but he smilingly declined, having a mind for solitude and the Lenox Club. A phalanx of debutantes, opera bound, also left. Then the tide set heavily the other way, and there seemed no end to the line of arriving vehicles and guests, until he heard a name pronounced; a policeman warned back an approaching Fiat; and Selwyn saw Mrs. Ruthven, ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... The combatants paused for a moment, gazing in mute astonishment, until the wind, dispelling the murky cloud, revealed the flaunting banner of Michael Paw, the Patroon of Communipaw. That valiant chieftain came fearlessly on at the head of a phalanx of oyster-fed Pavonians and a corps de reserve of the Van Arsdales and Van Bummels, who had remained behind to digest the enormous dinner they had eaten. These now trudged manfully forward, smoking their pipes with outrageous ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... next. Mary simply noted him as an altogether strange figure in the neighbourhood, but the unexpected appearance of a large dog on the scene scattered the babies, and they fell on her in a weeping phalanx. ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... George IV and to Queen Victoria. The chance encounter with Lola was a fateful one for both of them. But, as it happened, the virtuoso rather welcomed the prospect of a fresh intrigue just then. Wearied of the romanticism of the phalanx of feminine admirers, who clustered about him like bees, he found this one, with her beauty and vivacious charm, to have a special appeal for him. He responded to it avidly. ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... their tracks The Hebrews' host, honored with victory, With glory ennobled; them took the Lord God 300 Fairly to help, the Lord Almighty. They bravely then with shining swords, Stout-hearted heroes, a war-path wrought Through heaps of their foes, hewed down their shields, Cut through their phalanx: the warriors were 305 Enraged in battle, the Hebrew men; The thanes at that time were much delighted At the combat with spears. Here fell in the dust The highest part of the chiefest number Of the Assyrians' princely nobility, 310 Of the hateful race; ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous

... the Pyrrhic dance as yet, Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gave— Think ye he ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... column to the door of the ball—room, through which they drove the picket of constables like chaff, and then halted. The one—armed functionary, a most powerful and very handsome man, now detached himself from the phalanx, and strode up to the advanced guard of stewards clustered in front of the ladies, who had shrunk together into a corner of the room, like ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... the concurrence of all ages and nations, enlightened or ignorant, savage or civilized, should have so uniformly led to the belief in good and evil spirits wandering at large on the earth, not subject to the laws of matter, save in the sensation of sight and hearing. The creditable phalanx of names of distinguished persons who had placed their veracity on the side of believers, as having themselves been visited by the inhabitants of the other world, was opposed by his own experience; for although he had frequently ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... empires and kingdoms of the world must surrender themselves to the power of Quama; and as the will of providence is irrevocable, your kingdom must necessarily submit to fate. We therefore advise you to surrender voluntarily yourself and your dominions, rather than foolishly resist our invincible phalanx, and thereby experience all the ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg

... of the coursers of the proud Bellona, Mercury brings a crown from Olympus; The king of the gods sends it to the hero of the French As the reward of his success. Ye whom he guided a hundred times in the fields of glory, Phalanx of warriors, children of victory, Braving the impotent fury of the English, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... Douglass was most brilliant, be no "walking over the course" by him. It was in the country and time of Bancroft, Irving, Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, Bryant, Motley, Henry Clay, Dan Webster, and others of the laureled phalanx which has added so great and imperishable a lustre to the ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... giraffe raised his long neck above the bushes, about twenty yards distant, apparently uncertain whether it was safe to advance to the water; while in front lay the lake, reflecting the soft, clear moonlight, and beyond that the phalanx of elephants, enjoying themselves vastly. I had but two moments to take it all in at a glance, for Jack said "Now!" in a low tone, and instantly the loud report of the two rifles thundered out upon the ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... glorious suspense, and the grand crash and roar of broken water approached close at hand, and we distinguished the mighty phalanx, headed by the largest elephants, bearing down exactly upon us, and not a hundred yards distant. Here was luck! There was a grim and very murderous smile of satisfaction on either countenance as we quietly cocked the rifles and awaited the onset: it was our intention ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... in the justice of our cause and the boldness of our spirits, do solemnly declare ourselves the initiators of the Italian revolution. If the country does not respond to our appeal, we, without reproaching it, will know how to die like brave men, following the noble phalanx of Italian martyrs. Let any other nation of the world find men who, like us, shall immolate themselves to liberty, and then only may it compare itself to Italy, though she ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... made a discourse upon Greek poetry seem arid and a dissertation upon Italian painting colorless—if it were possible to conceive Grenville as wasting time or thought on such trifles—added no grace to the exposition of a fiscal measure or charm to the formality of a phalanx of figures. He was gloomy, dogged, domineering, and small-minded. His nearest approach to a high passion was his worship of economy; his nearest approach to a splendid virtue was his stubborn independence. ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... Mr. Tubbs, after occupying for a day or two an undistinguished middle place at the board, had somehow slid into the carver's post at the head of the table. Flanking him were the two ladies, so that the Land Forces formed a solid and imposing phalanx. Everybody else had a sense of sitting in outer darkness, particularly I, whom fate had placed opposite Captain Magnus. Since landing on the island, Captain Magnus had forsworn the effeminacy of forks. Loaded to the hilt, his knife ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... their counterparts. (Harsh masters do not rule long.) To what one may attribute such temporal confusions of the processes of development we are hardly able to suggest. A view is opened here to a deeper phalanx of biological, and perhaps also historical problems, which we have not yet approached ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud

... Dr. Struthers has lately described and figured[167] the structure of the feet; in both front and hind feet the distal phalanges of the two greater toes are represented by a single, great, hoof-bearing phalanx; and in the front feet, the middle phalanges are represented by a bone which is single towards the lower end, but bears two separate articulations towards the upper end. From other accounts it appears that an intermediate toe ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... Broadway, parched for music, these burning brethren of his—old men in that line, frequently carrying their own little folding camp-chairs, not against weariness of the spirit, but of the flesh; youth with Slavic eyes and cheek-bones. These were the six-deep human phalanx which would presently slant down at him from tiers of steepest balconies and stand frankly emotional and jammed in the unreserved space behind the railing which shut them off from the three-dollar seats ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... tower of strength to the Achaeans, broke a phalanx of the Trojans, and came to the assistance of his comrades by killing Acamas son of Eussorus, the best man among the Thracians, being both brave and of great stature. The spear struck the projecting peak of his helmet: its bronze point then went through his forehead ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... is a list of titles, which I take from Noyes: The Alphadelphia Phalanx, Hopedale Community, Leroysville Phalanx, Bloomfield Association, Blue Springs Community, North American Phalanx, Ohio Phalanx, Brook Farm, Bureau County Phalanx, Raritan Bay Union, Wisconsin Phalanx; the Clarkson, Clermont, Columbian, Coxsackie, Skaneateles, Integral, ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... allowed them no time to concentrate themselves in a serried phalanx, and tremendous carnage ensued. Surprised and taken unaware as they were, the banditti fought as if a spell were upon them, paralyzing their energies and warning them that their last hour was come. The terrible scimiters of the Turks hewed them down in all directions; ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... confused, and exchanged speaking glances with Julia. " However," she said calmly, "I have consulted Mr. Osmond and Dr. Short; but have not relied on them alone. I have taken her to Sir William Best. And to Dr. Chalmers. And to Dr. Kenyon." And she felt invulnerable behind her phalanx of ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... solid phalanx of men which had collected around the moveless bodies as swiftly as mercury sinks through water. Yet none of them touched either Donnegan or George. And then the solid group dissolved at one side. It was ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... our own outfit we found most interesting. Although collected from divergent localities they soon became acquainted. In a crowded corral they were always compact in their organization, sticking close together, and resisting as a solid phalanx encroachments on their feed by other and stranger horses. Their internal organization was very amusing. A certain segregation soon took place. Some became leaders; others by common consent were relegated to the ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... thus giving alternately praise and blame, as required, spurring the slow, checking the too ardent, he obtained orchestral effects seldom equaled in our days. Need I add, that he was able to detect at once, even among a phalanx of performers, the slightest error, either of ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... the synthetic mind of the highest power to be increasing in proportion to the population, instead of, as I suspect, pretty rapidly decreasing, and supposing the capitalist to be fully alive to the need of administrative improvements, a phalanx of Washingtons would be impotent to raise the administrative level of the United States materially, as long as the courts remain censors of legislation; because the province of the censorial court is to dislocate any comprehensive ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... camel's wake, dragging assorted chariots tenanted by gentlemen in togas; pretty little Mrs. Grigg, in habit and scarlet jacket, followed on Briza, the white mare; Horan came next, driving more horses; the dens of ferocious beasts creaked after, guarded by a phalanx of stalwart stablemen in plumes and armor; then Miss Crystal, driving zebras to a gilt chariot; then more men in togas, leading monkeys mounted on ponies; and finally Mrs. Horan seated on a huge egg drawn ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... abrupt termination of a lofty ridge, looks as if it would topple over into the sea, to which it is so close that both the rail and the road have to pass through it by tunnels. On the eastern side of this cape is the equally picturesque and sheltered bay, the Mer d'Eze, backed by a phalanx of lofty stalwart cliffs and mountains. On the peak (1300 ft. high) of one of this confused assemblage of lofty calcareous rocks is the nearly deserted village of Eze, pop. 770, with the ruins of its castle founded by the Saracens in 814, and its small church, recently restored, built on the ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... turned to fly the Saxons set up a triumphant shout, and breaking up their solid phalanx rushed after them in complete disorder. In vain Algar, Osgot, Toley, Eldred, and the other leaders shouted to them to stand firm. Weary of their long inactivity, and convinced that the Danes were routed, the Saxons pursued them across the plain. Suddenly the Danish horse, who after failing ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... state, they have remained ever since. Stiffened into castes, and tongue-tied and hand-tied by absurd rites and ceremonies, they were heard of in dim legends by Herodotus; they were seen by Alexander when that bold spirit pushed his phalanx beyond the limits of the known world; they trafficked with imperial Rome, and the later empire; they were again almost lost sight of, and became fabulous in the Middle Age; they were rediscovered by the Portuguese; they have been alternately ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... all, the rights which they had lost. The cities of Holland, Flanders, and other provinces call a convention at Ghent. Laying aside their musty feuds, men of all parties-Hooks and Kabbeljaws, patricians and people, move forward in phalanx to recover their national constitutions. On the other hand, Louis the Eleventh seizes Burgundy, claiming the territory for his crown, the heiress for his son. The situation is critical for the Lady Mary. As usual in such cases, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... cylindrical; nostrils scarcely projecting; upper lip with a shallow vertical groove in front; index finger without a claw; thumb short; part of the terminal phalanx included in the wing membrane; metacarpal bone of the second finger equal to the index finger in length; tail short and distinct; the base contained in the narrow interfemoral membrane; tongue long, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... He more than half his camp behind him led, In one deep phalanx. At the mighty sound Alone, the Scotsmen trembled, and in dread Abandoned honour, order, and their ground: Lurcanio, Ariodantes, and their head, Zerbino, there alone the torrent bound; And haply he, who was afoot, had died, But that in time his need ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... more, it improved his health, it changed the current of his thoughts. It was even useful to him as an historian. In a celebrated and characteristic sentence, he says, "The discipline and evolutions of a modern battalion gave me a clearer notion of the Phalanx and the Legions, and the captain of the Hampshire Grenadiers has not been useless to the historian ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... consternation when, before the smoke had well cleared away, they saw the shattered but dauntless brigade advancing fiercely and steadily upon them. Panic-stricken, they wavered; "the three regiments ran onward, and the mighty phalanx, which a moment before was so formidable, loosened and fell in pieces before fifteen hundred invincible British soldiers fighting in a line of only two deep." In this memorable charge, the standard-pole of the Eighty-eighth was struck by a bullet, the same ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... Germans quickly formed into a phalanx, as was their custom, and received the attacks of the swords (i.e. of the Romans ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... States, which took the initiative in the accusation against the President, and furnished the material, and worked the machinery which was used against him, and which was then so powerful on this floor, has become more and more odious to the public mind, and musters now but a slender phalanx of friends in the two Houses of Congress. The late Presidential election furnishes additional evidence of public sentiment. The candidate who was the friend of President Jackson, the supporter of his administration, and the avowed advocate for the expurgation, has ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... a fellow more sensible-looking than the rest, and told him that I wished to walk and would take him for a guide, and hoped now to be at rest; but vain thought! I was in the hands of the Philistines, and getting us up against a wall, they formed an impenetrable phalanx of men and brutes thoroughly determined that I should only get away from the spot on the legs of a donkey. Bethinking myself now that donkey-riding was a national institution, and seeing a fat Yankee ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... same way the proximal phalanx of the thumb may be excised, and yet, if proper care be taken, a very useful limb be left. I quote entire the following case by Mr. Butcher ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... commence, let me elucidate mine own—I mean the first, the head and front of this offending phalanx—mine own, par excellence, 'An Authors Mind:' such in sooth it shall be found, for richer or poorer, for better or for worse; not of selfish, but of common application; not so much individually of mine own, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... to make their way along over the top of the trellis. Jack only feared lest some strip of rotten wood might give way under their combined weight, and allow them to plunge downward. A solid phalanx of the sturdy football players had formed directly beneath, and they seemed determined that if anything of this sort took place they would serve as a buffer, so that those who fell through might not be ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... waist has a fine effect as a part of this costume. Add to it a gipsy hat and good substantial shoes or boots, and you may walk with ease, grace, and pleasure. This was the working and walking costume of the women of the North American Phalanx, and is still worn on the domain which once belonged to that Association, though the institution which gave it its origin has ceased to exist. If you reside in a place where you can adopt this as your industrial and walking costume, without ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells

... spirit was stirring. By their admirable spy service, their motorcycle service, and their aeroplane service, the German staff were informed of defiant Hartford crowds gathering in Bushnell Park; of the Putnam Phalanx parading in continental uniforms, and of the Governor's First Company Foot Guards marching past the monument where the Charter Oak had stood facing the South Congregational Church; and of patriotic speeches from beside the statue of Nathan Hale on ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett

... limbs Sphered in a vermeil mist. Upon the throne She took her seat, the knight beside her still, Singing on couches of fresh asphodel, And the dance ceased, and the flushed revelers came In glittering phalanx to adore their queen. Beautiful girls, with shining delicate heads, Crested with living jewels, fanned the air With flickering wings from naked shoulders soft. Then with preluding low, a thousand harps, And citherns, and strange nameless instruments, Sent ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... o'clock, he rang the bell of her lodgings in the MOZARTSTRASSE. This was a new street, the first blocks of which gave directly on the Gewandhaus square; but, at the further end, where she lived, a phalanx of redbrick and stucco fronts looked primly across at a similar line. In the third storey of one of these houses, Madeleine Wade had a single, large room, the furniture of which was so skilfully contrived, that, by day, all traces of the ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... size of his body, largely determined his fighting powers, and an Achilles or a Richard Coeur de Lion, armed only with his spear or battle-axe, made a host fly before him; today the puniest mannikin behind a modern Maxim gun may mow down in perfect safety a phalanx of heroes whose legs and arms and physical powers a Greek god might have envied, but who, having not the modern machinery of war, fall powerless. The day of the primary import to humanity of the strength in man's extensor and ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... together as members of the Church of England, whereas your people, in attacking the Church, are all over the shop. The supporters of the Church are of one mind about religion: its enemies are of a dozen minds. The Churchmen are a phalanx: your people are a mob in which atheists are jostled by Plymouth Brethren, and Positivists by Pillars of Fire. You have with you all the crudest unbelievers and all ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw

... orders that every man, both horse and foot, should gird on his armor and assemble in the square. As soon as they had come together, he led them outside the town and drew up his line of battle close beneath the walls. In front of this line he formed a solid phalanx, with a wing on either side composed of horse and foot. Still farther ahead he placed his catapults, with the largest of which he opened fire first, the sharpshooters at the same time picking off the enemy. The ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson



Words linked to "Phalanx" :   digit, crowd, bone, armed services, dactyl, os, armed forces, military unit, military, war machine, phalangeal, military group, military force



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