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Ravenous   Listen
adjective
Ravenous  adj.  
1.
Devouring with rapacious eagerness; furiously voracious; hungry even to rage; as, a ravenous wolf or vulture.
2.
Eager for prey or gratification; as, a ravenous appetite or desire.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ravenous" Quotes from Famous Books



... double Entendre or divided Aspect, which the great Men of the World generally act with, and by which all their Affairs are directed; from whence it comes to pass that there is no such Thing as a single hearted Integrity, or an upright Meaning to be found in the World; that Mankind, worse than the ravenous Brutes, preys upon his own Kind, and devours them by all the laudable Methods of Flattery, Whyne, Cheat and Treachery; Crocodile like, weeping over those it will devour, destroying those it smiles upon, and, in a Word, devours its own Kind, which the very ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... dogs began to chase that liver, and bark and fight each other. The driver yelled something in Russian, and pointed back with his whip, the Chicago man said: "My God, we are pursued by a pack of ravenous wolves, and there is no hope for us," and I began to cry, and implored dad, if he loved me, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck

... necessity,—bread; yet whatever else was taken, which I had it not in my power to take, was ascribed to me. I was the filching cat, the ravenous dog, the dumb brute, who must bear all; for if I endeavoured to exculpate myself, I was silenced, without any enquiries being made, with 'Hold your tongue, you never tell truth.' Even the very air I breathed was tainted with scorn; for I was sent to the neighbouring shops ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... month of August, 1354, that the valiant Genoese captain, Paganino Doria[6] by name, utterly routed the Venetians and took their town of Parenzo. And his well-manned galleys were now cruising backwards and forwards in the Lagune, close in front of Venice, like ravenous beasts of prey which, goaded by hunger, roam restlessly up and down spying out where they may most safely pounce upon their victims; and both people and seignory were panic-stricken with fear. All ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... admirably situated, and although the night was rather hazy, the light (revolving) shone out with great brilliance, and was afterwards seen from the Bramble's deck, when thirty-seven miles distant. We caught, in the narrows of the Strait, numbers of baracoudas, a very bold and ravenous fish, and withal a good-eating one, measuring from two to three feet in length; they bite eagerly at a hook towing astern, baited with a piece of red or white rag, and are taken in greatest numbers when several miles distant from ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... number of good arguments," Jack said, smiling, "and till tomorrow morning I am at your service; but I warn you that my appetite just at present is ravenous, and that my two dragoons are likely to make a serious inroad upon the larders of your ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... on the petals of flowers. Wild bees and wasps may often be noticed on these blades of grass that are still wet, as if they could suck some sustenance from the dew. Wasps fight hard for their existence as the nights grow cold. Desperate and ravenous, they will eat anything, but perish by hundreds ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... of Louis, a small, cheerful imitation of his father, slammed a bowl of cabbage soup down before them. Bertram, sighing his young, ravenous satisfaction, sank the ladle deep and stopped, his hand poised, his eyes fixed. Mark followed the direction of his glance. Louis Loisel, wearing his best air of formal politeness, was bowing a party of women to a table by ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... a light, I looked at the watch; but it was run down, and there were, consequently, no means of determining how long I slept. My limbs were greatly cramped, and I was forced to relieve them by standing between the crates. Presently feeling an almost ravenous appetite, I bethought myself of the cold mutton, some of which I had eaten just before going to sleep, and found excellent. What was my astonishment in discovering it to be in a state of absolute ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... had to complain of the universal presence of the dangling bodies. Thence the judges proceeded to Exeter and thence to Taunton, which they reached in the first week of September, more like furious and ravenous beasts which have tasted blood and cannot quench their cravings for slaughter, than just-minded men, trained to distinguish the various degrees of guilt, or to pick out the innocent and screen him from injustice. A rare field was open for their cruelty, for in Taunton alone there lay a thousand ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... have found plenty of clay along the river bank yonder." Here she gives me my steak on a piece of wood for platter, and I being so sharp-set must needs burn my mouth in my eagerness, whereon she gravely reproves me as I had been a ravenous boy, yet laughs thereafter to see me eat with such huge appetite now a bite of plantain, and now a slice of ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... dog, with his nose in his plate, as if he expected to find Virtue there, and runs his finger all round the bowl, not to lose a drop of the gravy. Let him monopolize pastry or joint, he will still criticize the carving—that is all the satisfaction his ravenous greed brings him—; when the wine is in, singing and dancing are delights not fierce enough; he must brawl and rave. He has plenty to say in his cups—he is then at his best in that kind—upon temperance and decorum; he is full of these when ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... harassed through the mountains. They all stretched themselves out to encompass and make sure of this solitary animal, for their lives depended on their success. After considerable trouble and infinite anxiety, they at length succeeded in killing him. He was instantly flayed and cut up, and so ravenous were they that they devoured some ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... found ranging over the more remote and lofty regions of the Puna, where they are able to find a safe retreat from the attacks of man. They have, however, a very formidable enemy in the ravenous condor, who frequently robs ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... first, of course. People never enjoy Abstract Science, you know, when they're ravenous with hunger. And then there's the Fancy-Dress-Ball. Oh, ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll

... her money. Gatteschi waited his time, he aimed at larger sums of money. Failing to get these by fair means, the scoundrel began to use threats of publishing her correspondence with him. In 1845 he was said to be "ravenous for money," and, knowing how Mary had yielded to vehement letters on former occasions, and had at first answered him imprudently, instead of at once putting his letters into legal hands, the villain made each fresh letter a tool to serve his purpose. ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... laid themselves open to these attacks. Neither Hadfield, Maunsell, nor the printer Colenso were amongst the land-buyers, and the same honourable self-denial was shown by all the Catholic missionaries, and by all the Wesleyans but two. Nor were the lay land-claimants always ravenous. Maning, the Pakeha Maori, had paid L222 for his 200 acres at Hokianga. At Tauranga L50 had been given for a building site fifty feet square, in a pa. At Rotorua the price given for half an acre had been L12 10s. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... They now became almost savage. Being frequently under the necessity of wearing shabby coats and dirty shirts, he became a confirmed sloven. Being often very hungry when he sat down to his meals, he contracted a habit of eating with ravenous greediness. Even to the end of his life, and even at the tables of the great, the sight of food affected him as it affects wild beasts and birds of prey. His taste in cookery, formed in subterranean ordinaries and alamode beefshops, was far from delicate. Whenever he ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... secret but ceaseless consciousness of anxiety lying in wait on enjoyment, like a tiger crouched in a jungle. The breathing of that beast of prey was in my ear always; his fierce heart panted close against mine; he never stirred in his lair but I felt him: I knew he waited only for sun-down to bound ravenous ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... there was a livid, unnatural redness, resembling that of a dried and lifeless skin. His eye was fearless and steady, but it was also artful and audacious, glaring upon the beholder with an unpleasant fixedness and brilliancy, like that of a ravenous animal gloating on its prey. He wore no covering on his head, and the natural protection of thick, coarse hair, of a fiery redness, uncombed and matted, gave evidence of long exposure to the rudest visitations of the sunbeam ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough

... the voyager, of course, has a ravenous appetite; such being the case, what can be more exasperating than having to grapple with a sort of dioramic dinner, where the dishes represent a series of dissolving views—mutton and beef of mature age, leaping ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... suffered me to believe, all that she sacredly promised? It amused her to do it, and she knew perfectly well what she really meant. She never meant to be sincere; she never dreamed she could be. She 's a ravenous flirt, and why a flirt is a flirt is more than I can tell you. I can't understand playing with those matters; for me they 're serious, whether I take them up or lay them down. I don't see what 's in your head, Rowland, to attempt to defend Miss Light; you were the first to cry out against her! ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... Swift, strong, insatiably ravenous, immeasurably fierce, the larva of the dragon-fly (for such the little monster was) had fair title to be called the wolf of the pool. Its appearance alone was enough to daunt all rivals. Even the great ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... jaguars come out of the forests and feed upon them; eagles and buzzards and wood-ibises are there, too, to claim their share of the feast; and, if they are fortunate enough to escape all these, there are many large and ravenous fishes ready to seize them in the stream. It seems a marvel that any escape ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne

... desolated homes, and bloodshed and ruin followed in their track. Master Bernard had heard too many such tales from all parts of the kingdom to heed overmuch what went on in this particular spot. He knew that the winter's privation and cold acted upon savage men almost as it did upon wolves and ravenous beasts, and that in a country harassed and overtaxed such things must needs be. He never suspected the cause of the Prince's eagerness. He believed that the youths had come down bent on sport, and ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... so they had, but not in the manner we supposed. As we closed with the raft it was seen that several sharks were cruising longingly round and round it, and occasionally charging at it, evidently in the hope of being able to drag off some of its occupants. So pertinacious were these ravenous fish that the boat's crew had to fairly fight their way through them, and even to beat them off with the oars and stretchers when they had got alongside. However, the poor wretches were rescued without accident; and in a quarter of an hour from the time of despatching the boat she was once more ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... in a constrained silence. Nicky, though ravenous, behaved politely, and only accepted a fifth ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... this time,—those who were left alive. The MAN rode up; we made a circle round him. Ha! he knew how to cajole his children; he could be amiable when he liked, and feed 'em with words when their stomachs were ravenous with the hunger of wolves. Flatterer! he distributed the crosses himself, he uncovered to the dead, and then he cried to us, 'On! to Moscow!' ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... become ravenous. Food I must have, or I should perish. I felt conscious that I was much weaker. I again tried to make myself heard, shouting and shrieking as loud as I could, but my voice was faint though shrill, more ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston

... Mr. Edward Blore as to the erection of a dwelling adjacent to the cottage, at a point facing the Tweed. This house grew and expanded, until it became the spacious mansion of Abbotsford. The Ballantynes also were ravenous for more money; but they could get nothing from Blackwood and Murray before the promised work ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... a baby in the fall, and the heat proved too much for her. Then one of the Yoeder daughters came; but the methodical German girl was so distracted by Mahailey's queer ways that Mrs. Wheeler said it was easier to do the work herself than to keep explaining Mahailey's psychology. Day after day ten ravenous men sat down at the long dinner table in the kitchen. Mrs. Wheeler baked pies and cakes and bread loaves as fast as the oven would hold them, and from morning till night the range was stoked like the fire-box of a locomotive. Mahailey wrung the necks of chickens ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... cried Betty stoutly. "If the worst comes to the worst, I shall be so ravenous with disappointment and nervous strain by six o'clock, that I shall be able to demolish ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... felt like Church, but it was the first place I could think of. Somebody shouted after me, but—well, you know how they drive in Paris. I stopped round the second corner, discharged the taxi, and walked to a restaurant. By rights, I should have been ravenous. As it was, the food stuck in my throat. A bottle of lime-juice, however, pulled me together. After luncheon I went to a cinema—I had to do something. Besides, the darkness attracted me.... I fancy I dozed for a bit. Any way, the first thing I remember was a couple of men ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... ravenous appetite of the start is becoming assuaged. My supplies may well be too generous; and it might be prudent to try a little dieting after this Gargantuan good cheer. The mother certainly is more parsimonious. ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... I do earn, My daily expenses by this I do learn; And find it is possible, though we be poor, To still keep the ravenous wolf from the door. ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... am ravenous myself. But I recall a broken cigarette in my waistcoat pocket; let us cut ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... gone by since we came to anchor, the healthful toil of fishing in the salt sea produced its natural result,—a ravenous appetite for food and drink; and a common consent to partake of refreshments now began to develop itself. The wives had much to do with this, as they detailed themselves along the railings, influencing their husbands with hints about the hamper and flask. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... surgical trooper in dressing the men's injuries. Miss Lou had learned that breakfast would be delayed, and so decided to satisfy her hunger partially at Aun' Jinkey's cabin. The excitements of the preceding day had robbed her of all appetite, but now she was ravenous. Her estrangement from her uncle and aunt was so great that she avoided them, having a good deal of the child's feeling, "I won't speak till they ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... given us one disobedient and unruly member that, like a furious animal, attempts, by the violence of its appetite, to subject all things to it; and so they have given to women one like a greedy and ravenous animal, which, if it be refused food in season, grows wild, impatient of delay, and infusing its rage into their bodies, stops the passages, and hinders respiration, causing a thousand ills, till, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... apartments and kitchen fires, well-stored larders, and especially exemption from rude toil, abolish these extreme caricatures; and keeping appetite down to a middling level by the rote of meals, and thus taking away the incentives to ravenous haste, they allow the mind to tutor and variegate the tongue, and to substitute the harmonies and melodies of deliberate gustation for such unseemly bolting. Under this direction, hunger becomes polite; a long-drawn, many-colored taste; the tongue, like a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... William, Frederick the Great, William the First—the Hohenzollerns were all there. The glittering eyes, the withered arm, the features that gave signs of frightful periodical pain, the immense energy, the gigantic egotism, the ravenous vanity, the fanaticism amounting to frenzy, the dominating power, the dictatorial temper, the indifference to suffering (whether his own or other people's), the overbearing suppression of opposing opinions, the determination to control ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine

... rushed round the dying, and frequently waited not for their last breath. When a horse fell, you might have fancied you saw a famished pack of hounds; they surrounded him, they tore him to pieces, for which they quarrelled among themselves like ravenous dogs. ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... hand-to-hand encounters of shouting strife, War is frightful and unnatural weariness, water up to the belly, mud and dung and infamous filth. It is befouled faces and tattered flesh, it is the corpses that are no longer like corpses even, floating on the ravenous earth. It is that, that endless monotony of misery, broken, by poignant tragedies; it is that, and not the bayonet glittering like silver, nor the bugle's ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... me beginning to eat myself!" she cried, with a little laugh. But she was the first to reach Mademoiselle Rosalie's door; and I watched her devouring her bread-and-milk with the eagerness of a ravenous appetite. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... no mistaking or overlooking the existence of worms when they are really present. Their presence, however, is often suspected without any sufficient reason. Ravenous or uncertain appetite, indigestion, flatulence, undue size of the abdomen, a dark circle round the eyes, itching of the nose and of the entrance of the bowel, a coated tongue, and offensive breath are no real proof of the presence of worms, and do not justify the frequent repetition of violent ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... the exposure of children was the great amount of pauperism which prevailed in the Roman Empire, and Christian emperors and councils had no choice but to allow many of these unfortunate children to be taken as slaves, rather than that they should perish from cold and hunger, or be torn by ravenous beasts. The pagan emperors, it is true, had done something to found orphanages, but these institutions were not common until the Middle Ages. Trajan in A.D. 100 supported 5,000 children at the expense of the State, and endowments were created by him for this purpose. Hadrian, Antoninus, ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... these evenings, when one was at liberty to appear in a street gown, or an evening costume, and where the little supper was so simple as merely to be a pleasant break in the midst of the dancing, but not to suggest the idea of an overburdened hostess, struggling to feed a ravenous multitude. No one else in the town had quite the same gift for entertaining as Mrs. Fisher; no one else could carry out an "At Home" with quite such delightful simplicity. She gave them the use of her house, together with a cordial, unaffected welcome, and she left the ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray

... Country Mouse became again efficient; and to witness his liberal mastery of ordering and imagine his pocket and its wealth, which they had heard and partly seen, renewed in the guests a transient awe. As they dined, however, and found the host as frankly ravenous as themselves, this reticence evaporated, and they all grew fluent with oaths and opinions. At one or two words, indeed, Mr. McLean stared and had a slight sense ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister

... country," said Miss Sutton; "I daresay. Oh, this dreadful, ravenous London; it eats up men, women, and children! Well, I must go on ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison

... 'I see ravenous creatures after their kind,' replied the bishop, 'who will, in all probability, soon tear asunder these poor limbs; but I see no monster like thyself. Teresa, dearest, fear not; there is a God, an avenging God, as well ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... administration had, ever since the death of Oliver, been constantly becoming more and more imbecile, more and more corrupt; and now the Revolution reaped what the Restoration had sown. A crowd of negligent or ravenous functionaries, formed under Charles and James, plundered, starved, and poisoned the armies and fleets of William. Of these men the most important was Henry Shales, who, in the late reign, had been Commissary General to the camp at Hounslow. It is difficult to blame the new government ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... know what ravenous means? Hungry. And a woman of title—you know what a lord is.... Well, and she's chasing about, dropping little scented notes at every street ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton

... lulls of the storm. The guide muttered some word which Cuthbert did not understand. But he said to Cnut, "I doubt not that it is wolves. Thank God that we are safe within this refuge, for here not even the most ravenous beasts could ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... property, and a disfranchisement of the members of the East India Company; all the several articles of whose effects were transferred by violence to strangers. Imagination was at a loss to guess at the most insignificant trifle that had escaped the harpy jaws of a ravenous coalition. The power was pretended, indeed, to be given in trust for the benefit of the proprietors; but, in case of the grossest abuses of trust, to whom was the appeal? To the proprietors? No; to the majority of either house of parliament, which the most contemptible minister could not fail ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... strokes of the axe, the wilderness slowly but gradually disappeared around their rude homes, and in the place of the gloomy forest, fields of waving grain appeared on every side to cheer and encourage the industrious woodsman. The forests abounded in the most ravenous animals, such as bears, panthers and wolves, while along the river and creek bottoms the ground was at places almost literally covered with poisonous reptiles. The climate was severe, and the country ...
— A Sketch of the History of Oneonta • Dudley M. Campbell

... jocularly, to the baby, for the excitement elated him. "The sun outside isn't good for me health." The baby settled herself in his arms and slept again, which sobered Rags, for he argued it was a bad sign, and his own ravenous appetite warned him how the child suffered. When he again offered her the mixture he had prepared for her, she took it eagerly, and Rags breathed a sigh of satisfaction. Then he ate some of the bread and ham himself ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... conjured up infernal spirits to reveal to them futurity. Their horrid ingredients were toads, bats, and serpents, the eye of a newt, and the tongue of a dog, the leg of a lizard, and the wing of the night-owl, the scale of a dragon, the tooth of a wolf, the maw of the ravenous salt-sea shark, the mummy of a witch, the root of the poisonous hemlock (this to have effect must be digged in the dark), the gall of a goat, and the liver of a Jew, with slips of the yew tree that roots itself in graves, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... girl, it is desolate, lonely, Out in this gloomy old forest of Life!— Here are not pansies and buttercups only— Brambles and briers as keen as a knife; And a Heart, ravenous, trails in the wood For the meal ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... they were met on every hand, and slain and driven, until they were scattered on the west, and on the north, until they had reached the wilderness, which was called Hermounts; and it was that part of the wilderness which was infested by wild and ravenous beasts. ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... and spirit rude May greet no kindred images of power To fear or wonder ministrant. No tower, Time-struck and tenantless, here seems to brood, In the dread majesty of solitude, O'er human pride departed—no rocks lower O'er ravenous billows—no vast hollow wood Rings with the lion's thunder—no dark bower The crouching tiger haunts—no gloomy cave Glitters with savage eyes! But all the scene Is calm and cheerful. At the mild command Of Britain's sons, ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... starvin'!" he answered, with such a ravenous glance at a fat nurse who happened to be passing, that I trembled for her, and hastened to take a bowl ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... Ed when the three, panting for breath, were safe in the cabin, a moment later, with the good stout door between them and the ravenous pack, which presently came snapping and snarling around the cabin. "I never saw such a pack of wolves before. I never knew that they gathered in such numbers in these days. There must be at least ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... be there, and a Way; and it shall be called The Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there: and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte

... St. Louis for the convenient season that was postponed from year to year, until a score were numbered ere the nails were drawn from the precious boxes. Every cent of the salary that might have been squandered(?) in books was needed to feed and clothe the ravenous little brood that came faster than their parents "could afford," as he has told us. What time was not devoted to them and to the daily round of newspaper writing was spent in conversing with his fellows, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... horse sledge, and drove briskly towards St. Petersburg. I do not exactly recollect whether it was in Eastland or Jugemanland, but I remember that in the midst of a dreary forest I spied a terrible wolf making after me, with all the speed of ravenous winter hunger. He soon overtook me. There was no possibility of escape. Mechanically I laid myself down flat in the sledge, and let my horse run for our safety. What I wished, but hardly hoped or expected, happened immediately after. The wolf did not mind me ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... simply ravenous, Esther, and dying for your delicious tea," Polly next remarked, following her hostess to the tea table and taking her seat, while Esther poured out the boiling water. "It is a kind of a homesick day and I have been wishing that we were going to have a ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook

... finished eating, he drinks water from a bamboo vessel. The chief, and perhaps also one or more of his upper-class companions, leaves a little of the pork and a little rice on the platter to show that he is not greedy or ravenous; and his good breeding prompts him to prove his satisfaction with the meal by belching up a quantity of wind with a loud and prolonged noise, which is echoed by his followers to the best of their ability. After thus publicly ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... specially terrible to one so friendless as her child? Had not she herself been wrecked among the rocks, trusting herself to one who had been utterly unworthy,—loving one who had been utterly unlovely? Men so often are as ravenous wolves, merciless, rapacious, without hearts, full of greed, full of lust, looking on female beauty as prey, regarding the love of woman and her very life as a toy! Were she higher in the world there might be safety. Were she lower there might be safety. But how could she send her ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope

... thunder-bearer, that same bird, That hoist up Ganymede from the Trojan plains. The vanguard strengthened with a wondrous flight Of falcons, haggards, hobbies, terselets,[231] Lanards and goshawks, sparhawks, and ravenous birds. The rearward granted to Auditus' charge, Is stoutly follow'd with an impetuous herd Of stiff-neck'd bulls and many horn-mad stags, Of the best head the forest ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... Like ravenous kite That takes its flight Soon as't has stol'n a chicken, Thou bear'st away My heart, thy prey, And leav'st me here to sicken. Three night-caps, too, And garters blue, That did to legs belong Smooth to the sight As marble white, And faith, almost as strong. Two thousand groans, As many ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... being at table, abroad or at home, must observe to keep her body straight, and lean not by any means with her elbows, nor by ravenous gesture discover a voracious appetite: talk not when you have meat in your mouth; and do not smack like a pig, nor venture to eat spoonmeat so hot that the tears stand in your eyes, which is as unseemly as the gentlewoman who pretended to have as little a stomach as she had a mouth, ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... were possible (and probable) there would be little comfort for me away from the chimney corner—which has never been my favourite post, by the way. Caliban and Agnes, the cook, a kindly Normandy woman, did their best for me and for the ravenous gang of workmen that laboured (in the slight intervals between their meals!) at the monstrous, many-mouthed iron tube in the cellar; while I chafed and scolded at the delays, unwilling to leave the men, weary of my dear Island now ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... verse; tequantepec, appears to be a textual error; tequani, a ravenous beast, from qua to eat; tepec, a mountain; but tequantepehua occurring twice later in the poem induces the belief tequani should be taken in its figurative sense of affliction, destruction, and that tepec is an ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton

... great, positive, hungry child! Why, sir, many and many a time have I said to Mrs. Pompley, ''Tis a mercy we have no children. We could never live in this style if we had children—never make both ends meet.' Child—the most expensive, ravenous, ruinous thing ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... taken by the king to secure the peace of his good city of Nimes, they had nevertheless been reactionary; consequently the Catholics, feeling the authorities were now on their side, returned in crowds: the householders reclaimed their houses, the priests their churches; while, rendered ravenous by the bitter bread of exile, both the clergy and the laity pillaged the treasury. Their return was not, however; stained by bloodshed, although the Calvinists were reviled in the open street. A few stabs from a ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the Rock of vile Reproach, A dangerous and dreadful place, To which nor fish nor fowl did once approach, But yelling meaws with sea-gulls hoars and bace And cormoyrants with birds of ravenous race, Which still sit ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... came to realize that she was wedded to the greatest man of the age. A truce was patched up, on the bankruptcy of her father, and she came back penitent, and was taken into favor. Not only did she come back, but she brought her family; and the ravenous Royalists consumed the substance of the spiritual and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... which Cherry turned her dogs. Emerson leaped from the sled, and, running forward, seized the leader, guiding it into a clump of spruce, among the boles of which he tangled the harness, for this team was like a pack of wolves, ravenous for travel and ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... the acquisitive instinct, like the sex instinct, easily breaks bounds and becomes ravenous; there is even less natural limit to it. It absorbs the energies of intellect and will. As with the rich fool, the horizon of life is filled with chances to make the pile grow bigger. Life seems to consist of money, and the problems ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... hungry wolves, and their feeding was not a pretty sight. When in his ravenous guzzling one dog's nose chanced to be thrust at all nearly to another's, there would arise a horrid sound of half-choked snarling; the fierce hissing rattle of snarls which came from flesh and blood-glutted jaws. Obeying instincts ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... was alone—no funeral, no human creature near him. When he arrived at the place of interment, he was so weakened by starvation himself, that he was unable to put a little covering of clay upon the coffins to protect them. When passing the same road next day, the priest found ravenous, starved dogs making a horrid meal on the carcasses of this uninterred family. He hired a man, who dug a grave, in which what may be literally called their remains were placed. On one occasion, returning through the gray morning from a night call, he ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... scenes of foreign parts and notably all manner beasts and birds and insects even gnats and flies, portrayed with such skill of brain and cunning of hand that they seemed real and alive and the country-folk and villagers seeing from afar paintings of lions and tigers and similar ravenous beasts, were filled with awe and dismay. On the other three sides of the scaffolding were pavilions, also of wood, built for use of the commons, illuminated and decorated inside and outside like the first, and wroughten so cunningly that men could turn ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... visited and then begged to stay on with room and board provided in exchange for their work. A few of these people made a significant contribution such as cooking, child care, gardening, tending the ever-ravenous wood-fired boiler we used to keep the huge concrete mansion heated, or doing general cleaning. But the majority of the 'work exchangers' did not really understand what work really was, or didn't have sufficient ethical presence to uphold the principle of fair exchange, which is basically giving ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... upon the culprits is not unlike, for while Loki is bound with adamantine chains underground, and tortured by the continuous dropping of venom from the fangs of a snake fastened above his head, Prometheus is similarly fettered to Caucasus, and a ravenous vulture continually preys upon his liver. Loki's punishment has another counterpart in that of Tityus, bound in Hades, and in that of Enceladus, chained beneath Mount AEtna, where his writhing produced earthquakes, and his imprecations caused sudden ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... large country adjoining that of his brother, with whom he is continually at variance. His fields are unproductive; thick clouds intercept the rays of the sun, and consequently destructive frosts are frequent; game is very scarce, and not easily taken; ravenous beasts are numerous; reptiles of every poisoned tooth lie in the path of the traveller; streams are muddy, and hunger, nakedness and general misery, are severely felt by those who unfortunately become his tenants. He takes pleasure in afflicting the Indians here, and after their ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver

... within his blighted heart, To greet this dumb, weak, helpless foster-child, And so, whene'er it lingered in the wilds, Or at the 'customed hour could not return, His thoughts went with it; "And alas!" he cried, "Who knows, perhaps some lion or some wolf, Or ravenous tiger with relentless jaws Already hath devoured it,—timid thing! Lo, how the earth is dinted with its hoofs, And variegated. Surely for my joy It was created. When will it come back, And rub its budding antlers on my arms In token of its love and deep delight ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt

... way for Doctor Chantry. He came in quite good natured, and greeted all of us, his inferiors, with a humility I then thought touching, but learned afterwards to distrust. My head already felt the healing blood, and I was ravenous for food. He bound it with fresh bandages, and opened a box full of glittering knives, taking out a small sheath. From this he made a point of steel spring ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... opposite advocates: one can never say positively, That is she! But the visible fair form of a woman is hereditary queen of us. We have none of your pleadings and counter-pleadings and judicial summaries to obstruct a ravenous loyalty. My lord beheld Aminta take her three quick steps on the plank, and spring and dive and ascend, shaking the ends of her bound black locks; and away she went with shut mouth and broad stroke of her arms into the sunny early morning river; brave to see, although he had ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... This we used very sparingly, reserving the rest for another occasion. Then we cut portions from one of the seals, and laid them in thin strips on the flames. The cooking was but slight, for the meat was merely singed; but we were ravenous, and the contact of the fire was enough to give it an attractive flavor. With this food we were greatly refreshed; and as for drink, we had all around us an endless extent of ice and snow. Then, taking our precious fragments of cooked meat, we returned to the boat and put off. ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... and receiving. He was engaged in cooking eggs and bacon for his supper, and if you could only guess how good they smelled! Nothing smells as nice as eggs and bacon when you are hungry, and we were ravenous. ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... at the mercy of our own ravenous desires, and so utterly miserable when they are thwarted, is unworthy of manhood, and is sure to bring many a bitter moment; for there are more disappointments than gratifications in store for such a one. We may learn from Ahab, too, the certainty that weakness ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... of all were the supplies for an extended stay; and when it was taken into consideration that a score of boys, with ravenous appetites, would want three big meals each and every day, the question of figuring out enough provisions to see them ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... of the Dining-Room, and the Clerk, who made a minute of the diet ordered for us, and moved off. Andrews and I immediately became very solicitous to know what species of diet No. 1 was. After the seasickness left us our appetites became as ravenous as a buzz-saw, and unless Diet No. 1 was more than No. 1 in name, it would not fill the bill. We had not long to remain in suspense, for soon another non-commissioned officer passed through at the head ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... Mystery—is it a scrap of remembrance, a spark Burning still in the fog of a blind world's brain? Elf of the gossamer tangles of shadow and light, Wild electrical webs and the battle that rolls League upon perishing league thro' the ravenous night, Breaker on perishing breaker ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... of almost every wave I stood up and gazed about me—especially ahead. Behind were only the ravenous waves seeking to overtake and swamp me. Ahead I hoped to see the vapor of some steamer, or, at least, the bare poles of a sailing vessel that could rescue me from my ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... dark shadow he had heard it growling, chafing at the least restraint, restless to be free. For now at last it was huge, strong, insatiable, swollen and distorted out of all size, grown to be a monster, glutted yet still ravenous, some fearful bestial satyr, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... administered without stint to the struggling and jaded horses. The night, however, brought neither danger nor mishap, and at four o'clock in the morning they arrived at Helena, very much demoralized and worn out, but with whole bodies and ravenous appetites. Manning went to bed immediately on his arrival, and did not awake until the sun was high in the heavens, when he arose, feeling considerably refreshed ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... a birthday supper for them, but with the treat at Larch Alley, and, perhaps, some fatigue, they were not ravenous. Primrose sang for them and was bewilderingly sweet—Andrew thought, just as the day had been, full of caprices but ending in tender beauty. And then they drank her health and wished her many happy returns, bidding her ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... ravenous pack of wolves, becoming more and more emboldened and impatient as the speed of her horse relaxed, approached nearer and nearer, until, with their eyes flashing fire, they snapped savagely at the heels of the terrified horse, while at the same time they kept up their hideous concert like the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... (it might seem) Yielding to old remembrances, and swayed In part by fear to shape a way direct, That would engulph him soon in the ravenous sea— Turns, and will measure back his course, far back, 5 Seeking the very regions which he crossed In his first outset; so have we, my Friend! Turned and returned with intricate delay. Or as a traveller, who has gained the brow Of some aerial Down, while there he halts ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... pursue, if thou wouldst 'scape From out that savage wilderness. This beast, At whom thou criest, her way will suffer none To pass, and no less hindrance makes than death: So bad and so accursed in her kind, That never sated is her ravenous will, Still after food more craving than before. To many an animal in wedlock vile She fastens, and shall yet to many more, Until that greyhound come, who shall destroy Her with sharp pain. He will not life support By earth nor its base metals, but by love, Wisdom, and ...
— The Vision of Hell, Part 1, Illustrated by Gustave Dore - The Inferno • Dante Alighieri, Translated By The Rev. H. F. Cary

... it is to watch Cassio, as he imagines, laughing over his shame. It is an imposition so gross, and should have been one so perilous, that Iago would never have ventured it before. But he is safe now. The sight only adds to the confusion of intellect the madness of rage; and a ravenous thirst for revenge, contending with motions of infinite longing and regret, conquers them. The delay till night-fall is torture to him. His self-control has wholly deserted him, and he strikes his wife in the presence of the Venetian envoy. He is so lost to all sense of reality that he never ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... satisfies for a time. Yesterday's food appeased our hunger for the day, but we wake hungry again. And the desires which are not so purely animal have the same characteristic of being stilled for the moment, and of waking more ravenous than ever. 'He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again.' Because, further, the desire grows and the object of it does not. The fierce longing increases, and, of course, the power of the thing that we pursue to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... He awoke ravenous and thirsty, but lay quietly for a time, luxuriating in the feel of the clean soft sheets. He was in a simply but tastefully decorated room. Three of the walls were made of transparent glass and the warm golden ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow

... old Jean's hut, with nothing between him and the ravenous wolves, except the angle of a wall, he took a long, gliding step, his body swinging gracefully with the motion, and was off like the wind, under a broad avenue of trees. But he had not gone far before one of the straps loosened and his foot slipped. He fell headlong, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... on the spot; but somehow one couldn't ask favors of the fellow. I sat still and prayed he'd come to me, though; for I was looking for something big for the next Salon. It was twelve years ago—the last time I was out ere—and I was ravenous for an opportunity. I had the feeling—do you writer-fellows have it too?—that there was something tremendous in me if it could only be got out; and I felt Vard was the Moses to strike the rock. There were vulgar reasons, too, that made me hunger for a victim. I'd been ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton

... hammock, after looking at the garden. While there the hogs entered the crater, and made a meal before his eyes. To his surprise, the sow was followed by ten little creatures, that were already getting to be of the proper size for eating. A ravenous appetite was now Mark's greatest torment, and the coarse food of the ship was rather too heavy for him. He had exhausted his wit in contriving dishes of flour, and pined for something more grateful ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... nearly half-an-hour watching and waiting. The bears finished their meal, having devoured every bit of the meat. Were they satisfied? No. A shoulder of mutton is but a morsel to the ravenous appetite of a grizzly bear; and it seemed only to have set theirs upon edge. They guessed whence their lunch had come—from above—and there was the place to go in search of their dinner. They looked up. The boys suddenly drew back their heads, hiding them behind the leaves. It was too late. ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... gratitude toward both Burns and Ellen, pressing his hands over his heart and then extending them, the expression on his face touching in its starved restraint. Then he fell upon the food, and even though he was plainly ravenous he ate as manneredly as any gentleman. Only by the way he finished each tiniest crumb could ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond

... strong hand should prevail, How order should be quelled; and by this pattern Not one of you should live an aged man, For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought, With self same hand, self reasons, and self right, Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes Would feed ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... attention he paid to her. Again he peeped at the biscuits. At the edge of the hot embers he placed a tin plate, upon which he carefully deposited the slices of ham. Carley had not needed sight of them to know she was hungry; they made her simply ravenous. That done, he poured the pan of sliced potatoes into the pot. Carley judged the heat of that pot to be extreme. Next he removed the lid from the other pot, exposing biscuits slightly browned; and evidently ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... satin and pearls to the ragged fatigue-dress of her father and brothers; but there was no help for that now, and really it troubled nobody. The shade of anxiety in madam's eye was caused only by a doubt as to the sufficiency of her supplies for three unexpected and ravenous guests; but a look at the mighty turkey, the crisp roast pig, the cold ham, the chicken pie, and the piles of smoking vegetables, with a long vista of various pastries, apples, nuts, and pitchers of cider on the buffet, and an inner consciousness of a big Indian pudding, for twenty-four hours ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... voracious air on a corner. A sign leaning against the front of the door-post announced "Free hot soup to-night!" The swing doors, snapping to and fro like ravenous lips, made gratified smacks as the saloon gorged itself with plump men, eating with astounding and endless appetite, smiling in some indescribable manner as the men came from all directions like ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... ravenous Thief he climbed up even higher, Till into a chamber small He crept where lay poor Robin's beauteous ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare

... more questions till the ravenous man had satisfied himself with the savory food; but, if she had asked them, Scott would have had no answer, for his mind was perplexed to the last degree. He fed the beast for a while on potatoes; but that was taking the bread out of his own ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... while he busied himself in preparing their evening meal, "you must be quite ravenous by this time—at least I am, which is the ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... raft as well—indeed, they appeared to be thicker there than elsewhere—as though we who stood upon it were to be the prey that would first fall into their ravenous jaws. So thick were they, that two or three could be seen side by side, swimming together as though they were yoked; and at each moment they grew bolder and came nearer to the timbers. Some already swam so close to the raft, that they ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... this, the inhabitants will not allow any one to injure them, and they are called for this reason scavengers, which means that they do the business for which scavengers are employed. Vultures are very greedy and ravenous; they will often eat so much that they are not able to move or fly, but sit quite stupidly and insensible. One of them will often, at a single meal, devour the entire body of an albatross (bones and all), which is a bird nearly as large as the vulture itself. They will ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... he can be present at all the interrogations of the accused. The law allows it—and as he is ravenous for publicity, he would tell the newspapers just what he pleased, and if my proceedings didn't suit him, I'd be vilified in the papers ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux



Words linked to "Ravenous" :   famished, ravening, wolfish, rapacious, edacious, sharp-set, starved, ravenousness, voracious



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