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noun
Plot  n.  
1.
Any scheme, stratagem, secret design, or plan, of a complicated nature, adapted to the accomplishment of some purpose, usually a treacherous and mischievous one; a conspiracy; an intrigue; as, the Rye-house Plot. "I have overheard a plot of death." "O, think what anxious moments pass between The birth of plots and their last fatal periods!"
2.
A share in such a plot or scheme; a participation in any stratagem or conspiracy. (Obs.) "And when Christ saith, Who marries the divorced commits adultery, it is to be understood, if he had any plot in the divorce."
3.
Contrivance; deep reach of thought; ability to plot or intrigue. (Obs.) "A man of much plot."
4.
A plan; a purpose. "No other plot in their religion but serve God and save their souls."
5.
In fiction, the story of a play, novel, romance, or poem, comprising a complication of incidents which are gradually unfolded, sometimes by unexpected means. "If the plot or intrigue must be natural, and such as springs from the subject, then the winding up of the plot must be a probable consequence of all that went before."
Synonyms: Intrigue; stratagem; conspiracy; cabal; combination; contrivance.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Plot" Quotes from Famous Books



... which befits an ambassador, although he had undertaken the embassy for no serious business, as I have said. For if anyone should count up the money expended and the gifts which Isdigousnas carried with him when he went away, he will find them amounting to more than ten centenaria of gold. So the plot against the city of Daras ended in ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... judge, my son. As I have stated to you at different times, I was betrayed by Mastowix, with whom I was engaged with others in a plot against Nicholas, Czar of Russia. I was worth a million of rubles, and the whole of it I pledged to the cause of human liberty in Russia. Mastowix knew this, and he also knew that other members of the society ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold

... circle of the hills A ring, all flowering in a round, An orchard-ring of almond fills The plot of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... the next day, the Russians started squawking about a capitalist plot, and someone had swiped their satellite. Gee, I mean with all the satellites up there, ...
— We Didn't Do Anything Wrong, Hardly • Roger Kuykendall

... retains a house of his own, and has neither rent to pay nor any excessive taxation, if only he have a moderate plot of land for workshop and garden, he is not made destitute, though he do not directly raise food for his household, but works at some domestic manufacture. Our "Spitalfields" poor who fought a long battle with the hand-loom against the loom driven by steam power, ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... army rose for flight, lifting like a blanket. Gradually the earth appeared in glimpses beneath their floating array, so that whereas our plot of higher ground was still invested, stooping low and scanning we could see beyond us by the extent of a narrow thinning belt capped ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... never more decisively set under her mannish hat, her waist never more attractively outlined in slenderness, she silently faced de Spain in the morning gray. His face reflected his chagrined perplexity. The whole fabric of his slender plot seemed to go to pieces at the sight of her. At the mere appearance of his frail and motionless foe a feeling of awkward helplessness dissolved his easy confidence. He now reversed every move he had so carefully ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... Another of them! another of those scarcely articulate foreigners! This is a most dangerous plot! Officer, arrest everybody present except the officials. I will make an example of everybody: I will commit ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris

... on the path she had come. No further however than to the first opening, where the climbing dog-rose hung over the way. There he turned aside crossing the little plot of greensward, and they ascended some steps cut in the rock to the pavilion Fleda had ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... I quickly think of a beautiful plot, The interest ne'er for an instant flags; The sorrowful ending is almost heart-rending, As the heroine comes on in tatters and rags. It is better than aught I have thought of before, And will certainly run for ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various

... in some manner bungled the job? Or had he passed it up? He must find out how much the greener knew. The boss guessed that if the other had unearthed the plot, he would force an ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... to Detroit, by the relenting of one individual, was prevented being carried into effect; and many were consequently saved from horrors, equalling, if not transcending in enormity, the outrages of the savages themselves. Scenes of licentiousness and fury, followed upon the discovery of the plot.—Exasperated at its heinousness, and under the influence of resentful feelings, the whigs retaliated upon the tories, some of the evils which these had conspired to inflict upon them. In the then infuriated state of their minds, and the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... sense of elation—and in the heart of him was a great fear. For, despite the utmost secrecy among the conspirators, the half-breed knew that even at that moment, somewhere to the northward, Pierre Lapierre had learned of his plot. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... a species of opera in which part of the dialog is spoken and part sung. Opera comique is not synonymous with comic opera, for the plot of opera comique is as often serious as not. In fact the entire distinction between the terms grand opera and opera comique is being broken down, the latter term referring merely to operas first given at the Opera Comique in Paris, and the former term ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens

... Vanderbilt House in South Harvey, and the old mare and her driver jogged up town to the Tribune office. There he creaked out of the buggy and went to his work. It was nine o'clock before the Captain came capering in, and the two old codgers in their seventies went into the plot of the surprise party with the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... Grand Boulevard in Detroit and the plot embraces twenty acres, so that there will be ample room for expansion. It is our thought to extend the facilities as they justify themselves. The original design of the hospital has been quite abandoned and we have endeavoured to work out a new kind of hospital, both in design ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... deaf; what cared Maltravers for the world? He hastened from the room, threw himself into his carriage, and Vargrave was left to plot, to hope, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Arabella Stuart, a near relation of the king's by the family of Lenox, and descended equally from Henry VII. Every thing remains still mysterious in this conspiracy; and history can give us no clew to unravel it. Watson and Clarke, two Catholic priests, were accused of the plot; Lord Grey, a Puritan; Lord Cobham, a thoughtless man, of no fixed principle; and Sir Walter Raleigh, suspected to be of that philosophical sect who were then extremely rare in England, and who have ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... insignificant in its own political aspect, had furnished a grand theme for a comedy of modern diplomatic errors, in the performance of which numerous clever gentlemen had found much innocent recreation, though not a man had been found capable of solving the plot to the satisfaction of the spectators. In fine, what caused so much longing after, and so many evil eyes to be cast upon this little kingdom of the poor Kaloramas, was the fact that it had within itself a great ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... the shore, a plot of ground Clips a ruined chapel round, Buttressed with a grassy mound; Where Day and Night and Day go by And bring no touch of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... several efforts to start an argument on the labor question, which I carefully avoided. After awhile a sonorous snore announced that he had fallen victim to my plot. ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... I held a council of war, wherein it was decided, nem. con., that our plot was in a ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... seem like a huge joke if it were not so serious. I don't know how he got such an idea in his head. Perhaps he thought that life was like one of his books—that all he had to do was to plan a plot, and then make it work out in his own way. He said, in that first awful moment, when I knew what he had done, "I thought I could play Cave Man and get away with it." You see, he hadn't taken into consideration that I wasn't ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... movements, and knew that his coming could dispel the mystery. If so, and if he had interest in keeping up the weird story, he had done well now to lose his charge for the time being. Wild and improbable as such a plot seemed, it was not more extraordinary than the fact that this intensely practical young man had sought the other and protected him ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... was told me by his lawyer, who looked after the case with interest and zeal. Outside of some ambiguous lines which this youth wrote to a woman before he left for Europe, lines in which the government's attorney saw a plot and a threat against the government, and which he acknowledged to be his, there wasn't anything found ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... a novel by Sir W. Scott (1820). The Abbot appeared the same year. These two stories are tame and very defective in plot; but the character of Mary queen of Scots, in The Abbot, is a correct and beautiful historical portrait. The portrait of Queen Elizabeth ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... they contrived so little to appeal to it. He felt at moments as if there were never anything to do for them that was worthy—to call worthy—of the personal relation; never any charming charge to take of any confidence deeply reposed. He might vulgarly have put it that one had never to plot or to lie for them; he might humourously have put it that one had never, as by the higher conformity, to lie in wait with the dagger or to prepare, insidiously, the cup. These were the services that, by all romantic tradition, were consecrated to affection quite as much as to ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... went, to those delightful and charming strains of nature's choristers. On his way he beheld a very delightful and level spot of land covered with golden sands and resembling heaven itself, O king, for its beauty. On that plot stood a large and beautiful banian with a spherical top. Possessed of many branches that corresponded with the parent tree in beauty and size, that banian looked like an umbrella set over the plain. The spot underneath that magnificent tree was drenched ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... to his landlord that for him to venture out by day was most dangerous, and sent the landlord after the newspapers. The feelings with which he read them were mixed. He was proud of the complete success of his plot, but the inevitableness of it terrified him. The success was too complete. He had left himself no loophole. He had locked the door on himself and thrown the key out of the window. Now, that she was lost to him forever, he found, if that were possible, ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis

... there was some deep plot in progress, and recognised that in all probability my pretty little ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux

... turn—my turn—my turn," chorused the voices; ready to snap up the coming morsel like insatiable young monsters as they were; and this time it was a fine fat worm that Mrs Spottleover found on the grass plot far away from his hole, and had killed and then brought him in triumph to her little ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn

... concentration of dramatic action." His books are veritably tragic. In Russian music alone may be found a parallel to his poignant pathos and gloomy imaginings and shuddering climaxes. What is more wonderful than Chapter I of The Idiot with its adumbration of the entire plot and characterisation of the book, or Chapter ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... number U. P. eightyfive thousand. Field seventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... improbable; and again, the story itself is a little too well constructed; it produces on us the effect of a puzzle, and we grow incredulous as we find that every character fits again and again into the plot, and is, like the child's cube, serviceable on six faces; things are not so well arranged in life as all that comes to. Some of the digressions, also, seem out of place, and do nothing but interrupt and irritate. ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that book infirmary up in the southeast attic. The "Negro Plot" at New York helped to implant a feeling in me which it took Mr. Garrison a good many years to root out. "Thinks I to Myself," an old novel, which has been attributed to a famous statesman, introduced me to a world of fiction which was not represented on the shelves of the library ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... D'Herouville, Fremin, Pauquet, and the woodsman named The Fox because of his fiery hair and beard, peaked face and beady eyes. When the party broke up, the vicomte emerged from his hiding place, wearing a smile which boded no good to whatever plot or plan D'Herouville had conceived. And that same night he approached each of D'Herouville's confederates and spoke. What passed only they themselves knew; but when the vicomte left ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... kind. Now, this Someone never mentions this strange house of his, though he must be aware of its existence; then this Someone knows intimately several, at least, of the people more or less involved in the Jacques Dollon affair, and—one may boldly assert it—the Dollon plot was hatched in a cellar, in a sewer ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... business, I acknowledge, to take advantage of the popular prejudice as a power—as a means of dramatic pathos and effect; yet you will acknowledge that we Jews must feel it peculiarly hard, that the truth of the story on which the poet founded his plot should have been completely sacrificed to fiction, so that the characters were not only misrepresented, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... thoughts and resignation, so exacting, inquiring, agitated, tormented, would the world which was created to receive the beings which we now are, have been this unpleasant little dwelling place for poor fools, this salad plot, this rocky wooded and spherical kitchen garden where your improvident Providence had destined us to live naked, in caves or under trees, nourished on the flesh of slaughtered animals, our brethren, or on raw vegetables nourished by the sun and ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... Ulrica Hardyng, coming forward, with an expression of contempt upon her fine features. "I can't say as I consider it so. I can understand precisely the motive that induced that woman to plot this piece of mischief. She meant to ruin you, Clemence, in the estimation of the whole community; in short, to brand you as dishonest. If you had effected a sale of the article, without examining ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... direction, are the full-lengths of the Pitti Palace and the Naples Museum, in both of which sumptuous court-dress replaces the gala military costume. They are practically identical, both in the design and the working out, save that in the Florence example Philip stands on a grass plot in front of a colonnade, while in that of Naples the background is featureless. As the pictures are now seen, that in the Pitti is marked by greater subtlety in the characterisation of the head, while the Naples canvas appears ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips

... been done, as to order what was left undone, but especially to fit the sailes, and to accommodate the ship, all which Rawlins was very carefull and dilligent in, not yet thinking of any peculiar plot of deliverance, more than a generall desire to be freed from this Turkish slaverie, and ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... was to be called, who was to have his "light put out" by the fellow prisoner of the one in fits, who was a strong muscular fellow. Meanwhile the "cracksman," whose cell was opposite, was to unlock the cell doors of all the prisoners in the plot. This dark and desperate scheme was frustrated, however, by a little lad, who had heard two of the convicts conversing about it. His term of imprisonment expired on the day preceding the night fixed for the accomplishment; and he gave information to the governor, who ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... heure! Then, suppose we fix upon the plot of open ground just behind the hill to the left of the Casa Ghirlande—between that and the Villa Romani—it is quiet and secluded, and there will be no fear ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... You are wrong, all wrong, I tell you. There is no plan or plot to make you feel uncomfortable. We are plain village people here, and you are wealthy and have been used to associating with those of your class. Every one in Denboro knew that when you came, and they have been shy of ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... as we jogged along I gradually drew the details of the plot from him. The news of our defeat had, it seemed, stirred up the negroes at the plantation, and in some way the wild rumor had been started that a great force of French was marching over the mountains to conquer Virginia and all the other English colonies; that emissaries ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... Hunter's ambition to establish a museum where the study of anatomy, surgery, and medicine might be advanced, and in 1765 he asked for a grant of a plot of ground for this purpose, offering to spend seven thousand pounds on its erection besides endowing it with a professorship of anatomy. Not being able to obtain this grant, however, he built a house, in which were lecture and dissecting ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen

... days of his prosperity he gave to the congregation of the Lutheran Church in his town a choice plot of ground, the consideration being the sum of five shillings and an annual rental of ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers

... tell you much. I should have spoken to you the first thing this morning had it not been for the news about Neco." Chebron then related to Ameres how he and Amuba had the night before visited the temple, ascended the stairs behind the image of the god, and overheard a plot to ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty

... is comparatively easy. In the forest, the conditions are different. Here, the tree-enemies have to be battled with, just as in the open, and in addition, instead of there being only a few trees on a plot of ground, there are thousands growing on the same area, all demanding the same things out of a limited supply. The struggle for existence, therefore, becomes keen, many falling ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison

... fond of Peak; I wish him well. But I can't join him in a dishonourable plot.—Then, we mustn't ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... that formerly existed between these nations seemed as absurd as a farmer dividing his farm into little plots and trying to cultivate all kinds of plants on each plot instead of putting only wheat in wheat land and corn ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor

... still remains a considerable claim for privacy in Utopia. The room, or apartments, or home, or mansion, whatever it may be a man or woman maintains, must be private, and under his or her complete dominion; it seems harsh and intrusive to forbid a central garden plot or peristyle, such as one sees in Pompeii, within the house walls, and it is almost as difficult to deny a little private territory beyond the house. Yet if we concede that, it is clear that without some further provision we concede the possibility that the poorer townsman (if there ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... "ready with my play, the best plot I've had yet. You won't let me even mention it to you. Here's the new season. Here's Epstein, sitting on our door-mat with a check-book in each hand, waiting to put on anything we give him. You know ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan

... from the pansy-bed. "Good-by, honey-suckle. Good-by, peony. Good-by, matter-i-mony." This sounds funny, but Mary only meant by it a vine with a small purple flower which grew over the back-door. "Good-by, lilac," she went on. "Good-by, grass plot." This brought her to the gate. The wagon stood waiting to carry them to the railroad, three miles away. Mrs. Forcythe, with the baby in her arms, was just getting in. "Hurry, Mary," called her ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... "The plot thickens! Every day we are nearing success! We have the woman treed at last, and in the North, among our friends! Depend upon it we shall ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton

... The sapphire waters of the South had quite lost their sparkle and enchantment. Here, here, was the place of life! The exhilaration of his task, its importance, the glow of thankfulness when some real advantage was won, a plot foiled, a scheme carried to success—these matters were all banished from his mind. Even the war-risk of it was forgotten. He thought with envy of the men in trenches. Yet the purpose of his yacht was long since known to the Germans; the danger of the torpedo was ever present on ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. . . . . . . "Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... view of the world comes not by prearranged and indoor interviews. One must walk out into the good outdoor world for the opportunity and the inspiration. The garden plot, the park, and, best of all, the open fields and woods speak to a child and furnish us an open book from which we may teach him to read. Recalling religious impressions, the writer would testify to feeling nothing deeper, as a result of church attendance in childhood, ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... that after this the poor youth would have been left in peace; but no, his enemy the stableman hated him as much as ever, and laid a new plot for his undoing. This time he presented himself before the king and told him that the youth was so puffed up with what he had done that he had declared he would seize the ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various

... indignant at this, but as it would not suit his present views, pretended not to notice it— on the contrary, he professed the warmest friendship for the vice-consul, and took an opportunity of saying that he could not return his kindness in a better way than by informing him of the plot which had been arranged. He then told him of the intended escape of his sister, and that he was the person intended ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... mentions them. At first he praises them highly, but of one of the later ones—Tryphon—he writes:—'The play, though admirable, yet no pleasure almost in it, because just the very same design, and words, and sense, and plot, as every one of his plays have, any one of which would be held admirable, whereas so many of the same design and fancy do but dull one another.' Pepys's Diary, ed. 1851, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... of 1840, and proved a failure. It betrays no insufficient sense of dramatic effect, nor lack of the means for producing it, but decided clumsiness in the adaptation of these means to that end. The plot and personages recall those of Indiana, with the important differences that the beau role of the piece falls to the husband, and that the scene is transported back to Florence in the Middle Ages—an undoubted error, as giving to a play essentially modern and ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... cheerfully rub shoulders; the descriptions of the wistful beautiful West of Ireland in autumn and winter; and above all the horses. Added to all this there are Sinn Fein raids, real and imaginary, to bring things up to date. A rather unconvincing plot, with a dash of Great Expectations in it, yet offers a situation which has plenty of amusing possibilities. Honor and Evie Nutting, two middle-aged spinsters, find themselves the possessors of eight thousand a year, on condition ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various

... officers and men of the army home to work. Writing to Halleck as chief of staff at the same time, he referred to the same topics, expressed his belief, from all he saw and heard, that "even Mr. Davis was not privy to the diabolical plot" of assassination, but that it was "the emanation of a set of young men of the South who are very devils." [Footnote: Id., p. 245.] He told Halleck that Johnston informed him that Stoneman's cavalry had been at Salisbury, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... like all her young friends, like you, Mademoiselle, and also like you formerly, Madame, had commenced her little romance, had sketched her little plot. She had loved, oh truly loved, with a love necessarily confined to the platonic state, the handsome young men with tasty cravats, whom she had seen on days when she walked out. What delightful chapters were sketched upon their brown or fair heads! Oh! when would she be free? When ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... the walk laid across the neat little grass plot, sent a humbly grateful glance up to the stars-and-stripes that fluttered lazily from the short flagstaff, and went in as though he had business there, and as ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... the three were sleeping, Judas reported himself at the High-Priestly Palace, ready to be the guide of the band to arrest his Master. There were the Temple-guard with their staves, and soldiers with their swords, and members of the Sanhedrin, ready to aid in carrying out the plot arranged with the betrayer. It was midnight—fit hour for their deed of darkness. The full moon shone brightly in the clear atmosphere; yet they bore torches and lamps upon poles, to light up any dark ravine or shaded nook in which they imagined Jesus ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed

... prompted by Supay[FN7]; That evil being possesses thee. All round are beauteous girls to choose Before old age, and weakness come. If the great Inca knew thy plot And what thou seekest to attain, Thy head would fall by his command, Thy body would be ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham

... naval confinement or custody, or legally held to bail, either before or after conviction, and all persons who were engaged, directly or indirectly, in the assassination of the late President of the United States or in any plot or conspiracy in any manner ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... Then the plot began to thicken. Studying the lists of incoming steamers, Mae announced to her room-mate that he had landed. He had given his word to her father not to write; but she knew that in some way she should ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... Babylonian cylinder seals there are engraved seven small discs, in addition to other astronomical symbols. These seven small stellar discs are almost invariably arranged in the form :::' or:::. much as we should now-a-days plot the cluster of the Pleiades when mapping on a small scale the constellations round the Bull. It is evident that these seven little stellar discs do not mean the "seven planets," for in many cases the astronomical symbols which accompany ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder

... gone in for I have wagered a crown-aye, and more than that even. To-morrow only will decide whether the game is lost or won, but I know already to-day that I would rather see my enterprise against Philometor fail, with all my hopes of the double crown, than our plot against the life of the Roman; for I was a man before I was a king, and a man I should remain, if my throne, which now indeed stands on only two legs, were to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... story, and was furious at having been the dupe of the pretended Jacob, he destroyed the sycamore behind which the envious Isaac had spied into the garden; for the plot of ground belonging to him had been bought by Cornelius, and ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... small inheritance in educating himself and becomes an accomplished scholar, a skillful musician, a poet, and an artist. He pours forth his worship in a poem, but his suit is rejected and he is subjected to violent insult. Stung to remorse he enters into a plot to personate a prince, woo her in that guise, and take her as a bride to his mother's cottage on their wedding night. And, in the faint hope of winning her as a prince and keeping her love as an untitled man after he has revealed his identity, ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... for the property, and the demand was merely made in order to sound the people and arrange a plot for the betrayal of the state, which was managed by the ambassadors whom he had nominally sent to look after his property. These men were selling some part of it, keeping some safe, and sending some of it away, and meanwhile intrigued so successfully that they won over two of the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... was he opposed to this, that on one occasion he seized the keys of the House from the serjeant, for which he was committed to the Tower, although upon his humble submission he was afterwards discharged. The next year he was supposed, and not without reason, to be involved in a plot to rob the Exchequer of 50,000 pounds, and therewith to raise a rebellion; but it was discovered, and all the conspirators were executed except Sir A. Kingston, who perhaps only escaped by dying on his road to London, whither he was summoned to appear before the Council. By his will, dated ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... cracks up the English and runs down the French: the hackneyed old Shaw touch. The characters are second-rate middle class, instead of being dukes and millionaires. The heroine gets kicked through the mud: real mud. Theres no plot. All the old stage conventions and puppets without the old ingenuity and the old enjoyment. And a feeble air of intellectual pretentiousness kept up all through to persuade you that if the author hasnt written a good play it's because hes ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw

... Her explosive laugh pealed out in the second before fear of her father stifled it. So this was how Sissy had planned to get even; so this was the plot behind Bep's baffling blue eyes! And only the accident of Madigan's going to the door had ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... mismanagement and cruelty which had directly led to United States interferences in the islands. But whilst I could well believe that this man's life had not been safe in those bad old days in the West Indies, I found it difficult to suppose that a native plot against his safety could have survived for more than twenty years and have come to a climax in England. However, I realized that there was more to follow, and presently, having lighted his cigarette, ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... appeal for relief of Armenian Christians in Turkey is made to the Turkish Government by the United States; a plot is discovered to blow up the council chamber in the Ministry of War at Constantinople during a ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... the old paperback novels used to say at the end of the first instalment, 'The Plot thickens!' At first I thought this case of stupid ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... This man worked cunningly on the mind of the lord deputy, insinuating that O'Neill was plotting treason and preparing for a Spanish invasion. He even went so far as to write an anonymous letter, revealing an alleged plot of O'Neill's to assassinate the lord deputy. It was addressed to Sir William Usher, clerk of the council, and the writer began by saying that it would show him, though far severed from him in religion, how near he came home to him in honesty. He was a Catholic, and professed ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... the prejudices of his enemies and, for a long time, escaped punishment. But finally he was arrested and convicted and, notwithstanding his so-called Divine power, he came to an inglorious end by death on a cross. His friends, unable to prevent his cursed death, quickly formed a plot to perpetuate his doctrines. They carried out their plot by stealthily robbing Christ's body from the grave and secretly burying it elsewhere, and then spreading the news that he, of his own power, came forth from the ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris

... thought that Demetrius, Lysander, and her once dear friend Hermia, were all in a plot together to make a ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... manoeuvres; every day, however, the Regent was informed of them by his most influential negotiator with foreign countries, Abbe Dubois, his late tutor, and the most depraved of all those who were about him. Able and vigilant as he was, he was not ignorant of any single detail of the plot, and was only giving the conspirators time to compromise themselves. At last, just as a young abbe, Porto Carrero, was starting for Spain, carrying important papers, he was arrested at Poitiers, and his papers were seized. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... she spoke added to the certainty that some new plot was afoot, and Rallywood glanced ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... destroyed by an education elaborately bad. But they are called forth into full energy by a virtuous passion. Her lover, while he adores her beauty, is too honest a man to abuse the confiding tenderness of a creature so charming and inexperienced. Wycherley takes this plot into his hands; and forthwith this sweet and graceful courtship becomes a licentious intrigue of the lowest and least sentimental kind, between an impudent London rake and the idiot wife of a country squire. We will not go into details. In truth, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... I answered, "in spite of your opinions, you confess the clergy to be so bad, why are you so angry with men of our opinions, if we do plot sometimes a little against ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... to which she had already the subtle sense that, wherever perched, it would be the very oddest yet seen in France. But it was at least as exciting to feel where Mrs. Wix wasn't as it would have been to know where she was, and if she wasn't yet at Boulogne this only thickened the plot. ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... of similar mental constitution, he hated to be mystified, and now, for the first time in his long career of investigation into apparently abstruse phenomena, he had been absolutely stumped by this perfect-mannered, quiet-spoken gentleman from the East who performed wonders in broad daylight, on a plot of grass amidst a crowd of people, and did not deign to even touch the things he worked his miracles with. If he had only used some sort of apparatus, or condescended to some concealment, after the manner of others of this kind, there might have been a chance of finding a ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... to employ Romance in the aid of History,—to extract from authentic but neglected chronicles, and the unfrequented storehouse of Archaeology, the incidents and details that enliven the dry narrative of facts to which the general historian is confined,—construct my plot from the actual events themselves, and place the staple of such interest as I could create in reciting the struggles, and delineating the characters, of those who had been the living actors in the real drama. For the main materials of the three ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... two years. About that time Williams, one of the seamen, having the misfortune to lose his wife, forcibly took the wife of one of the Otaheitans, which, together with their continued ill-usage, so exasperated the latter that they formed a plan for murdering the whole of their oppressors. The plot, however, was discovered, and revealed by the Englishmen's wives, and two of the Otaheitans were put to death. But the surviving natives soon afterwards matured a more successful conspiracy, and in one day murdered ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... lightly as ever. "I never am, my dear Blake. Surely you must have noticed it. Well, am I to be let into the plot, or not?" ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... a canon up which they had struggled all day onto a level plot where the pine stood in somber ranks. A spring creek split the flat in two. Beside this tiny stream Bill unlashed his packs. It still lacked two hours of dark. But he made no comment, and Hazel forbore to trouble him with questions. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... this in a letter to Mr. Lord of a later date, Morse answers: "The plot thickens all around me; I think a denouement not far off. I remember your consoling me under these attacks with bidding me think that I had invented something worth contending for. Alas! my dear sir, what encouragement is there to an inventor ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... through the casement on the dusty brick floor. When we followed her into the back parlour, she opened the door into the little garden, the neat and gay appearance of which contrasted with the dirty and forlorn aspect of the cottage. A spade and a rake were lying on the grass-plot in front of it. Mr. Middleton inquired of the old woman how she managed to keep the garden in so good a state, and who she got to work ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... her little rival—for Marie was her rival, according to the plot of the opera—now threatening, now protecting her, as she was led on by the spirit of the play. Marie shrunk before her, or was inspired by her; and her delicate, entreating figure helped the pathos of her voice. Marie, by ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... M'Ginnis stood motionless, staring back at that desolate plot of ground; when at last he glanced toward his companion, Soapy was lighting ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... immediately after it, the doge was found linked with the daring band of which that officer was chief, there is no violation of probability in granting that some such conversation took place, and that the train was ignited by this collision of two angry spirits. Whether the plot was in any degree organized beforehand, or arose at the moment, it is manifestly impossible for us to decide, without information ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various

... 'Twas ever my intent, and still 'tis so To have the love, not hatred, of that fair; But should I Aymon slay, or bring some woe By plot or practice, on his house or heir, Will she not justly hold me as her foe, And me, that foeman, as her lord forswear? What shall I do, endure such injury? Ah! no, by Heaven! ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... dreams, and of a New York maiden, beyond dreams beautiful—both known as the Silver Butterfly. Well named is The Silver Butterfly! There could not be a better symbol of the darting swiftness, the eager love plot, the elusive mystery ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... which more than anything else, convinced me that by plan and plot I was purposely made powerless in Mr. Winters' hands, and that he did not mean to allow me that advantage of being afoot, which he possessed. Moreover, I then became convinced, that Philip Lynch (and for what reason I wondered) ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... that time everybody was inclined to underestimate his chances. Strictly speaking he didn't seem to have any. I know this was Cornelius's view. He confessed that much to me in extenuation of the shady part he had played in Sherif Ali's plot to do away with the infidel. Even Sherif Ali himself, as it seems certain now, had nothing but contempt for the white man. Jim was to be murdered mainly on religious grounds, I believe. A simple act of piety (and so far infinitely ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... to Noorna, and she came forward swiftly to him, exclaiming, 'I read the plot, and the thing required of me; so say nought, but embrace me ere I leave thee, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... in the first instance required a complete acquaintance with the text, a clear idea of the sequence of events, an ingenious head to plot out the work, and no small amount of purely mechanical skill to bring it to ...
— Little Gidding and its inmates in the Time of King Charles I. - with an account of the Harmonies • J. E. Acland

... desperately to catch at the branch of a tree near them. She threw her arms round him. With all her little strength she tried to hold him up. Her utmost effort only availed to drag him to the grass plot by their side, and to soften his fall. Even as the cry for help passed her lips, she saw help coming. A tall man was approaching her—not running, even when he saw what had happened; only stalking with long strides. He ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... giving form and vitality to the abundant materials that exist in the Dominion for the true story-teller. His works show great skill in the use of historic matter, more than ordinary power in the construction of a plot, and, above all, a literary finish which is not equalled by any Canadian writer in the same field of effort. Other meritorious Canadian workers in romance are Mr. William McLennan, Mrs. Coates (Sarah Jeannette Duncan), and Miss Dougall, whose names are ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot

... great weight on our minds, but did not shake our purpose. We had not been on board the Old Jersey more than one hour before we began to plot our escape. We had been only three days on board when we left it forever. We had been on board long enough to discover the awful scenes which took place daily ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... at once from childhood to young womanhood, and Mrs. Smith was pleased to have her protegee appear so well and receive so much attention, for she felt that she had had the revision of her. She already saw in her the heroine of the novel she meant to write, with the plot beginning in Kilo and Clarence, and carried to New York ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler

... the Colonel manage to free himself from his wife? Would it be long? Could he not go into some State where it would not take much time? He could not say exactly. That they must think of. That they must talk over. And so on. Did this seem like a damnable plot to Laura against the life, maybe, of a sister, a woman like herself? Probably not. It was right that this man should be hers, and there were some obstacles in the way. That was all. There are as good reasons for bad actions as for good ones,—to those who commit them. When one has broken ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... beckoned Goethe to approach him. He asked how old he was, expressed his wonder at the freshness of his appearance, said that he had read Werther through seven times, and made some acute remarks on the management of the plot. Then, after an interruption, he said that tragedy ought to be the school of kings and peoples; that there was no subject worthier of treatment than the death of Caesar, which Voltaire had treated insufficiently. A great poet would have given prominence to Caesar's plans for the ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... together to the consular dignity by Marcus Aurelius, who greatly valued their virtue and their mutual attachment, and were entrusted together with the civil government of Greece. They were both falsely accused of taking part in a plot against the emperor's life; and Commodus, who coveted their property, had them both put to death together. The tyrant then took possession of their villa, which became as notorious for the evil deeds done in it as it was famous before for the virtuous ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... Napoleon, ere he had been many days at the Tuileries, set on foot a scheme for carrying them off from Vienna, by a mixture of stratagem and force. There were French people in the suite of Maria Louisa who easily embarked in this plot; and forged passports, relays of horses, and all other appliances had been so well provided, that but for a single individual, who betrayed the design, there seems to have been a considerable probability of its success. On discovering this affair the Emperor of Austria dismissed ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... are welcome," interposed Kendal. "Miss Vincent and I were only conversing upon the salient points of a new novel we finished reading yesterday. If you would care to hear it, I shall be pleased to go over the plot with you, and hear your ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey

... wait. You plot against me. Take care; I am strong; I warn you. There must be an end ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... in scene, plot, motives, and characters, the copyright works of Edward S. Ellis have been deservedly popular with the youth of America. In a community where every native-born boy can aspire to the highest offices, such ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic

... author out of a simple plot and very few characters, has constructed a novel of deep interest and of considerable historical value. It will be found ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... I was reasonably sure that the ruby represented the motive for the murder, I had been given a number of reasons for believing that this motive involved a plot infinitely farther-reaching than the determination of some common thief or housebreaker to secure the gem. If I wanted to fix responsibility for Mr. Page's cruel death, I would be obliged to lay bare the controlling cause in all its ramifications. Whether Maillot ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... into a white heat over his book, till, too excited to write more, he would calm himself down by a pipe, pacing his grass-plot in thought, and in long strides. He was a great smoker, and tobacco was to him a needful sedative. He always used a long and clean clay pipe, which lurked in all sorts of unexpected places. But none was ever smoked which was in any degree foul, and ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade

... and Lima. His court became a place of refuge for all Spaniards who fell out with their fellows. One of these refugees, Gomez Perez, either killed Manco himself in a brawl over a game of quoits or helped to kill him as the result of a plot. The Inca, at all events, was murdered by Spaniards whom he had befriended. That was in 1544. In 1911 Professor Hiram Bingham visited Vitcos the situation of which is clearly shown on the map, dated 1907, that accompanies Sir Clements Markham's translation of Sarmiento and Ocampo ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho

... external beauty achieved by technical methods proper to the particular kind of art. Thus, in dramatic art, the technical method will be a true individuality of language, corresponding to the characters, a natural, and at the same time touching plot, a correct scenic rendering of the demonstration and development of emotion, and the feeling of measure in ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy

... him what his name was, something they already knew at least as well as he did; made to overhear their ensuing declarations that the cat had got his tongue, which he always denied bitterly until he came to see through the plot and learned to receive the accusation ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... little crowd shuffled as they shifted to get a better view, and two boys, chewing gum, climbed on the seats and stood up. A small girl of ten or so sped past on roller-skates, uttering shrill cries to a companion beyond the grass-plot. And then the gates opened and they came out to us, a little flock of frightened animals, each with his ticket pinned on his breast, each looking round for an instant as sheep do when let out of a pen, instantly herded by officials ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... teeth present from twenty to thirty square inches of dentate surface, constantly exposed to ever-changing, often inimical, conditions. This bacterially infected surface makes a fairly large garden plot. Every cavity adds to the germ-nourishing soil. Dental caries—tooth decay—is a disease hitherto almost universal from birth to death. Thus the air taken in through the mouth becomes a purveyor of its poisonous emanations and ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... Florian to follow me, and I crept forward. With difficulty, upon hands and knees, I avoided the hooked thorns that would otherwise have fastened upon my clothes, and, with the wind favourable, I at length succeeded in passing through the intervening jungle, and arrived at a small plot of grass that was sufficiently high to reach the shoulder of the elephant. This open space was about fifteen yards in diameter, and was surrounded upon all sides by thick jungle. He was a splendid bull, and ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... I had finished telegraphing I hurried home and bade adieu to Marie and the little Madeline and the two nephews, and then I came back to the boat—and that part I shall tell you later, for mademoiselle knows nothing of the plot against her, and has been greatly distressed for you. So it shall be understood that you fell down and hurt your head ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert

... after what had passed between them? He would think her unwomanly and, strangely enough, with that thought she began to feel that she must have his good opinion. Yet she went, half dubiously, into the plot to prove a coward of the man ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon

... numbered the Lees, Virginians, enemies of Washington, and the two Adams. Mifflin, quarter-master-general, aided him with his talents and brilliant eloquence. They required a name to bring forward in the plot, and they selected Conway, who fancied himself the chief of a party. To praise Gates, with a certain portion of the continent and the troops, was a pretext for speaking of themselves. The people attach themselves to prosperous generals, and the commander-in-chief ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... I,' said her friend, smiling, 'and I have been laying a plot against him. You see, he is as strong as a lion, and never yet was too tired to sleep; but it is rather a tempting of Providence to keep 3589 people and fourteen services in a ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... calamity had befallen her husband and had destroyed his reason. The moment he produced the proof of what he said, her presence of mind returned, and she saw at a glance the true horror of the situation. She never doubted for a moment that she was the victim of some atrocious plot, but having something to face which she could understand her great natural courage asserted itself. She was not a woman to moan and weep helplessly when there was an open ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford



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