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adjective
Sharp  adj.  (compar. sharper; superl. sharpest)  
1.
Having a very thin edge or fine point; of a nature to cut or pierce easily; not blunt or dull; keen. "He dies upon my scimeter's sharp point."
2.
Terminating in a point or edge; not obtuse or rounded; somewhat pointed or edged; peaked or ridged; as, a sharp hill; sharp features.
3.
Affecting the sense as if pointed or cutting, keen, penetrating, acute: to the taste or smell, pungent, acid, sour, as ammonia has a sharp taste and odor; to the hearing, piercing, shrill, as a sharp sound or voice; to the eye, instantaneously brilliant, dazzling, as a sharp flash.
4.
(Mus.)
(a)
High in pitch; acute; as, a sharp note or tone.
(b)
Raised a semitone in pitch; as, C sharp, which is a half step, or semitone, higher than C.
(c)
So high as to be out of tune, or above true pitch; as, the tone is sharp; that instrument is sharp. Opposed in all these senses to flat.
5.
Very trying to the feelings; piercing; keen; severe; painful; distressing; as, sharp pain, weather; a sharp and frosty air. "Sharp misery had worn him to the bones." "The morning sharp and clear." "In sharpest perils faithful proved."
6.
Cutting in language or import; biting; sarcastic; cruel; harsh; rigorous; severe; as, a sharp rebuke. "That sharp look." "To that place the sharp Athenian law Can not pursue us." "Be thy words severe, Sharp as merits but the sword forbear."
7.
Of keen perception; quick to discern or distinguish; having nice discrimination; acute; penetrating; sagacious; clever; as, a sharp eye; sharp sight, hearing, or judgment. "Nothing makes men sharper... than want."
8.
Eager in pursuit; keen in quest; impatient for gratification; keen; as, a sharp appetite.
9.
Fierce; ardent; fiery; violent; impetuous. "In sharp contest of battle." "A sharp assault already is begun."
10.
Keenly or unduly attentive to one's own interest; close and exact in dealing; shrewd; as, a sharp dealer; a sharp customer. "The necessity of being so sharp and exacting."
11.
Composed of hard, angular grains; gritty; as, sharp sand.
12.
Steep; precipitous; abrupt; as, a sharp ascent or descent; a sharp turn or curve.
13.
(Phonetics) Uttered in a whisper, or with the breath alone, without voice, as certain consonants, such as p, k, t, f; surd; nonvocal; aspirated. Note: Sharp is often used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, sharp-cornered, sharp-edged, sharp-pointed, sharp-tasted, sharp-visaged, etc.
Sharp practice, the getting of an advantage, or the attempt to do so, by a tricky expedient.
To brace sharp, or To sharp up (Naut.), to turn the yards to the most oblique position possible, that the ship may lie well up to the wind.
Synonyms: Keen; acute; piercing; penetrating; quick; sagacious; discerning; shrewd; witty; ingenious; sour; acid; tart; pungent; acrid; severe; poignant; biting; acrimonious; sarcastic; cutting; bitter; painful; afflictive; violent; harsh; fierce; ardent; fiery.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sharp" Quotes from Famous Books



... at lonely intervals Some farmer's sleigh, urged on, With rustling runners and sharp bells, Swings by me and is gone; Or from the empty waste I hear A ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman

... live or burning crater like Kilauea, Haleakala, I thought, would be but a dull sight; but it is, on the contrary, extremely well worth a visit. The islands have no sharp or angular volcanic peaks. Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, on Hawaii, though 14,000 feet high, are mere bulbs—vast hills, not mountains; and the ascent to the summit of Haleakala, though you surmount 10,000 feet, is neither dangerous nor difficult. It is tedious, ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... letter without asking your pardon for some expressions, too sharp, perhaps, in my former letters, about your vast geological conceptions. The very exaggeration of my expressions must have shown you how little weight I attached to my objections. . .My desire is always to listen and to learn. Taught from my youth to believe that the organization ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... economic and the political relations of the two countries. Surely the pale ghost of "Sovereignty" smiled ironically as he read this official note. President Wilson after having made in the case of Shantung a sharp and complete separation of economic and political rights, also said that a nation boycotted is within sight of surrender. Disassociation of words from acts has gone so far in his case that he will hardly be able to see the meaning of ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey

... A sharp pain brought me to. Pierre was dragging me by the hair along the tiles. I lay still, stupidly watching. Pierre had plunged in again. And, in my confused state, I was surprised to see Gaspard at the spot where my brother had disappeared. The young man had Veronique in his arms. When ...
— The Flood • Emile Zola

... afraid," returned Adolay, quickly. "You do not know how angry the men will be: and you don't know how sharp their eyes are. If you were to return with me they would see you long before you could see them, and would give ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... and argued. Capes had the gift of easy, unaffected writing, coupled with very clear and logical thinking, and to follow his written thought gave her the sensation of cutting things with a perfectly new, perfectly sharp knife. She found herself anxious to read more of him, and the next Wednesday she went to the British Museum and hunted first among the half-crown magazines for his essays and then through various scientific quarterlies for his research papers. The ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... peacefully in the shady coverts of the neighboring woods. Who knows what they may have thought when they heard their only enemy, man, ring out his bugle-call to slip the war-dogs on his fellows, or when the sharp crack of the rifle told them for the first time of safety to themselves and of death to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... Her face had blanched; its lines were as sharp and distinct as if graven in stone; only her eyes spoke, an eloquent anguish. Her faculties were numbed for a moment. But presently there was a quiver in her chin, and her ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)

... you conciliate them by smiling; the only way to look is to look sharp out. Eh, master?" said the first-lieutenant, slapping ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... and thus ensuring a wide distribution of the eggs. In no case are wings fully developed until the closing stage of the insect's life, they are always acquired after hatching or birth. We have already noticed (p. 40) how Sharp (1899) has laid stress on the essential difference between the exopterygote and endopterygote insects, the wing-rudiments of the former growing outwards throughout life while those of the latter remain hidden ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter

... accidents—accidents must be kept away; but enviable, admirable, we think, when we are not thinking of seed sown or help given to the generations to follow. Nesta both envied and admired; she revered them; yet her sharp intelligence, larger in the extended boundary of thought coming of strange crimson-lighted new knowledge, discerned in a dimness what blest conditions had fixed them on their beautiful barren eminence. Without challengeing it, she had a rebellious rush of sympathy for our evil-fortuned ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... woman cannot, like a man, fight a subject down. Her intellect shrinks from being tossed and pierced on the pricks of doctrine. She is gentle and cowardly. She sets the matter aside, and is contented to wait till she dies to find out. But the men in Walton were all theologians, and sharp at polemics. In the bar-room the spirit of liberty throve, which was crushed in the pulpit. In that small New-England town, where, like a great white sheep, Father Boardman now led his docile flock to the fold, whoever looked long enough would see many new folds and many ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... you be too sharp. And it really is a first-rate idea. All these parcels now—I suppose there must be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various

... structures is an earth-mound. If a hundred, or hundreds, of men could drag the huge stones many leagues, as they must have done to bring them to their destined place, they could have drawn each of them up a long slanting mound ending in a sharp declivity, with a hole for the foot of the stone at its base. If the stone were now tipped over, it would slide into its place, and could be easily raised from its slanting position to the perpendicular. Then filling in the space between the mound and two contiguous ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Peter. The attention that these audacious satires of the theatre, the actors, and their audience attracted is evidence of the literary poverty of the period. The letters are open imitations of the "Spectator" and the "Tatler," and although sharp upon local follies are of no consequence at present except as foreshadowing the sensibility and quiet humor of the future author, and his chivalrous devotion to woman. What is worthy of note is that a boy of nineteen should turn ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... to himself. And for a short time he kept his vow; but there came a moment when something, some irresistible feeling, conquered him. It was as if he must look—as if some magic forced him, drew his eyes toward her in spite of himself. And when he had looked, a sharp shock thrilled him, for she herself was looking at him; her eyes were fixed upon him with a strange steadiness, as if perhaps they had been resting upon him for some minutes and she had forgotten ...
— The Pretty Sister Of Jose - 1889 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... James, coming down sharp on his words: "I've had all the doctors in London for one or another of us. There's no satisfaction to be got out of them; they'll tell you anything. There's Swithin, now. What good have they done him? There he is; he's bigger than ever; he's enormous; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... to be stringy of body. She had a sharp hatchet-face, eyes with the colour of ice in them ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... mistaken if you think I am feeling my age. Seventy! And I don't feel a day over fifty, not a day, sir. But I shall rest for a few hours as a precaution, a mere precautionary measure and be able to meet you for our little business at two-thirty sharp." ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... the ruffian, "I intend to stay." And he lent such emphasis to the last word that Sackett gave him a sharp glance to see if ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains

... followed this trail for perhaps a hundred yards when a sharp turn to the right brought me to the mouth of a large cave. The opening was about four feet in height and three to four feet wide, and at this opening ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... being trained to sing themselves to death, in a struggle which was hideously impersonal, a struggle of machinery, in which the only winners were the armament manufacturers. And crazy pacifists might draw a very sharp line indeed between the songs which celebrated real personal struggles in the tiny wars of the past, and the songs which were merely the prelude to thousands of puzzled young men suddenly finding themselves choking in chlorine gas, in the wars ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols

... "The Destruction," and attains real heights of graphic suggestion. A long, almost inaudible roll on the drums, with occasional thuds, heralds the coming of the earthquake; subterranean rumblings, sharp rushes of tremor, toppling stones, and wild panic are insinuated vividly, with no cheap attempts at actual imitation. The roaring of the terrified lion is heard, and, best touch of all, under the fury of the scene persists ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes

... The sharp ears of the saloon-keeper had caught the name "Bud," and he now stood racking his fertile brains to place it. But the stranger's identity ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... off my boots, drew the sofa near the fire, and stretched myself at full length upon it. If ever mortal was tired, "I reckon" I was. It seemed as though every joint and bone in my body had lost the power of motion, and sharp, acute pains danced along my nerves, as I have seen the lightning play along the telegraph wires. My entire ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore

... to the dainty table near at hand. She picked up a perfumed note, and read it again, and as she read, a happier look smoothed away the sharp lines of mental anguish which had marked the beautiful face but a short time before. The crested sheet bore the address of the Dalmatian Embassy in Paris, and was from the lovable old Countess Oreshefski, whose ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous

... the doctor. "Look!" and he took up from the floor by his knee the weapon which had caused Marthe Gobin's death. It was nothing but an ordinary skewer with a ring at one end and a sharp point at the other, and a piece of common white firewood for a handle. The wood had been split, the ring inserted and spliced in position with strong twine. It was a rough enough weapon, but an effective one. ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason

... of the memories were sharp; there was the evening she found Thirlwell carrying her belongings a double stage in order that she might have all she needed when they camped. He panted as he leaned against a tree and his face and hair were wet; she felt moved but angry that he had exhausted ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... her head held down, she couldn't help thinking, "So that's the way he does it," and felt, I think, as feels the fly who has walked into the parlour. The next moment she heard a sharp voice, "Here—stop that!" and ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

... the beach, and John was despatched for his mother. While he is absent, we will improve the opportunity to give our young readers a better idea of the new boat than they have yet obtained. She was about eighteen feet long, and very broad for her length. Her bow was very sharp, and her build combined the advantages of being a safe boat and a fast sailer. She was schooner-rigged, carrying a jib, foresail, and mainsail; and there was a staysail in the cuddy for use ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams

... to a deeper hue, and he regarded the speaker with aversion, but said nothing in reply, fearing Raymond's sharp tongue. Instead, he turned upon Prescott, who looked like a mild youth fit to stand ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... the study window, and we all broke into an exclamation as we approached it. The flowers were trampled down, and the soft soil was imprinted all over with footmarks. Large, masculine feet they were, with peculiarly long, sharp toes. Holmes hunted about among the grass and leaves like a retriever after a wounded bird. Then, with a cry of satisfaction, he bent forward and picked up a little ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Then, when the third night closed in, he made a forced ride back to Wittenberg, and for the third time set fire to the city. Herse, who crept into the town in disguise, carried out this horrible feat of daring, and because of a sharp north wind that was blowing, the fire proved so destructive and spread so rapidly that in less than three hours forty-two houses, two churches, several convents and schools, and the very residence of the electoral governor of the province were ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... people, including the master of hounds, thought him perhaps a little too loudly prominent; he affected a familiarity with the dogs, and was on speaking acquaintance with every man's horse. But when the work was cut out, when the pace began to be sharp, when it behoved a man either to ride or visibly to decline to ride, then—so at least said they who had not the de Courcy interest quite closely at heart—then, in those heart-stirring moments, the Honourable John was ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... of good money in that stage coach and Brown and I meant to have it, but some sharp-eared rascal heard us arranging the details of the plan, ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... forward, swerved perilously at the sharp curve below the club gate and rushed off into the very teeth of the storm, guided by the firm, resolute hands of ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon

... Rullock nor anything to do with him that had helped on this sharp alteration, this turn into some Cimmerian stretch of the mind's or the emotions' vast landscape. If Strickland had at first wondered if this might be the case, the thought vanished. Glenfernie, free to speak of Ian, spoke ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... herself as far as possible from her adversary. There, motionless, she awaits events, which are soon disturbed by the fussy Bumble-bee. Should the latter occupy the upper position, the Tarantula protects herself by drawing up her legs, which keep the enemy at a distance. In short, save for sharp scuffles when the two champions are in touch, nothing happens that deserves attention. There is no duel to the death in the narrow arena of the test-tube, any more than in the wider lists afforded by the bottle. Utterly ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... he was asleep I approached his prostrate form (my axe was sharp {I ground it myself} ...
— The Purple Cow! • Gelett Burgess

... The sharp little way in which she darted a look at him, half sensitively injured, and half pettishly, would have been very much admired ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... been a short time before I opened my eyes. Some one was knocking at the door. Outside I could hear the low panting of a motor-car, the flashing of brilliant lamps threw a gleam of light across the floor of my room. Again there came a sharp rapping upon the door. I raised myself upon my elbow, but I made no attempt at speech. The motor was the Rowchester Daimler omnibus. What did these people want with me? I was horribly afraid of being found ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... though Dan Storran always contrived to interpose his big person betwixt her and the sharp corners of life, and she began to wonder, with a faint, indefinable dread, what must become of their friendship when Magda returned to Friars' Holm. Feeling as he did towards the dancer, it would be impossible for him to come there any more, and somehow a snatched hour here and there—a lunch ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... that beats the ground with its tail is killed; and in South Africa some of the Damaras will not eat the flesh of a spotted ox. The Kaffirs value an animal with a musical voice; and "at a sale in British Kaffraria the low of a heifer excited so much admiration that a sharp competition sprung up for her possession, and she realised a considerable price."[505] With respect to sheep, the Chinese prefer rams without horns; the Tartars prefer them with spirally wound horns, because the hornless are thought ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... he paid a short visit to the University of Cambridge, with his friend Mr. Beauclerk. There is a lively picturesque account of his behaviour on this visit, in The Gentleman's Magazine for March 1785, being an extract of a letter from the late Dr. John Sharp. The two following ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... a sharp look out till dark, but saw no more of them. I proposed that we should attempt to communicate with the men in the canoes, and desire them to permit some of them to drift on shore after taking out the women, as the islanders would then in all probability go away. But as the men very justly ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... death. There was a custom in those days that when a man was condemned to death the executioner walked out of the judgment-hall before the prisoner with the sharp edge of the axe turned backwards ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... said Elizabeth, in a very low tone. "If you have no pity, have some respect—for him—if you have none for me." And then she burst into an agony of tears, such as he had never seen her shed before. But he was pitiless still. The wound was very deep: his pain very sharp and keen. ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... collected all his courage and though he had formerly made use of many mean artifices, such as feigning madness, sickness, and a variety of diseases, in order to protract his examination, and procure his escape, he now resolved to act his part with bravery and resolution, "'Tis a sharp remedy," he said, "but a sure one for all ills," when he felt the edge of the axe by which he was to be beheaded.[*] His harangue to the people was calm and eloquent; and he endeavored to revenge himself, and to load his enemies with the public hatred, by strong asseverations of facts, which, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... afternoon, are all gone. No whirring wings rush past; there is no sound of "dragon-fly, or painted moth, or musical winged bee" to break the stillness; all the insect-world seems dead, or flown south with the swallows—though, as there are still spiders' webs to be seen, each delicate thread marked in sharp outline, like the rigging of an icebound ship, it would seem that there must still remain some unwary fly to be taken in ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... sharp warfare in London between two opera singers, La Faustina and La Cuzzoni, and their partizans. It went so far that young ladies dressed themselves a la Faustina and a la Cuzzoni. We need not wonder, therefore, at the hair a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various

... the members were so pious and godly, were pretty sharp in bargaining with their preachers; for instance, the church in New London made its new parson sign a contract that "in case he remove before the year is out, he returneth the L80 paid him." Often clergymen would "supply" (or "Sipploye," or "syploy" or "sipply," or ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... the sailor, winking to himself; "but never you mind about that, sir. If so be as it comes to a brush with the niggers, I'll grind you up a cutlash, with a hedge so sharp as you might shave yourself with it. Perhaps you'd like me to do it now, sir, if your razor is ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... a detective's badge showing on the lapel of his coat. Now and then the man would remove his whiskers to wipe his face, and then I would recognize at once the well-known features of the great New York detective. Jolnes was keeping a sharp watch upon the doors and ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry

... came to the end of his journey, he had himself driven to the hotel, and ordered his dinner, and ate it in solitude, still supported by the ecstasy of his thoughts. He knew that there was before him a sharp cruel punishment, and then a weary lonely life. There could be no happiness, no satisfaction, in store for him. He was aware that it must be so; but still for the present there was a joy to him in thinking that he would make her happy, ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... to their neighbor on the other side. Shingles flew off and chimney bricks, and ends of corrugated iron roofing slapped and banged as though frantic to be loose. Houses shivered on their foundations, and lesser buildings lay on their sides. Clouds of dust obscured the sun at intervals, and the sharp-edged gravel driven before the ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... by Mr. Fentolin's chair, and together they looked up through the fragments of the trap-door. Meekins was still breathing heavily. Suddenly they heard the sound of a sharp report, as of a door ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... they were brothers. They had the same bushy eyebrows, the same healthy colour in their cheeks, the same thick shoulders, and brisk way of speaking, and clear, sharp, though kindly, eyes; only Tom was cast in larger proportions than Andrew, and had gotten the grey furniture of Time for his natural wear. Perhaps, too, a cross in early life had a little twisted him, and set his mouth in a rueful bunch, out of which occasionally ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... our fortitude, require! 'Of foes intestine, what a numerous band 'Against this little throb of life conspire! 'Yet Science can elude their fatal ire 'Awhile, and turn aside Death's levelled dart, 'Sooth the sharp pang, allay the fever's fire, 'And brace the nerves once more, and cheer the heart, 'And yet a few soft ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... there was room to receive the men they carried. Then back they would come for another load. They worked thus for three days and five nights steadily, before they slept, and some of them stripped to the waist and bared their breasts to the sharp night wind so that the cold air would keep them awake to the task of driving their cars through the black night with its precious load of human lives. They had no opportunity for rest of any kind, no chance to shave or wash or sleep, and they were ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

... face Phyllis rose and walked toward the door. I had commanded her, and yet I felt a sharp pang of bitterness that she had yielded so quickly to my words. It seemed at the moment that everything was passing out of my life; that Phyllis, that Sylvia, that all the once sweet, continuous memory was ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field

... the blaster. He trotted over to Calhoun. He plucked at the man's trouser-leg again. He held the blaster in the only way his tiny paw could manage it. A dark, sharp-nailed finger ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... a sharp voice: "William, William——!" And he saw that there was no beach now in Teviot Bay except the dwindling crescent at its farthest ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... awakening was this. He seemed to be dreaming that he was buying a new pair of shoes and, after having tried on several tentative pairs in a shop, the salesman, who was attired in the full regalia of a cowboy, gave Dick's left foot a sharp kick as if to indicate that he should remove ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker

... desired he would observe, that the clerk in his office used a sort of ivory knife, with a blunt edge, to divide a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only by requiring a steady hand; whereas, if he should make one of a sharp penknife, the sharpness would make it go often out of the crease, and disfigure ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous

... of anxious, loving arms poised to catch it. The extraordinary apportionment not only in balance but in kind of punishment to sin—long-continued, secret, base desires, punished by long-hidden suffering—the sharp stress of temptation yielded to, requited by the sharp pang—the glorious feeling which I have once or twice felt—the sin once sinned and the punishment once over, as one is assured supremely sometimes that it is without doubt—of trustful freedom, and fresh fitness ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson

... this?" he said. "A fine white turkey down in the grass! Well, well, is my father losing his sharp sight and his keen scent? I shall not let such a ...
— Fifty Fabulous Fables • Lida Brown McMurry

... "the nasty thing" would not come and be killed. Seizing a large wooden pudding spoon, which lay close at hand, Harry jumped on one of the wooden chairs and aimed a desperate blow at the poor insect. But Yellow-band was too sharp for him, and Harry, losing his balance, fell down with a thump on the sanded floor, while his weapon, spinning across the kitchen, came in contact with one of Mrs. Jolly's basins, and brought it ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... filled some of these young men with distress and disgust, strengthened into rage when they went home on leave. The deliberate falsification of news (the truth of which they heard from private channels) made them discredit the whole presentation of our case and state. They said, "Propaganda!" with a sharp note of scorn. The breezy optimism of public men, preachers, and journalists, never downcast by black news, never agonized by the slaughter in these fields, minimizing horrors and loss and misery, crowing over the enemy, prophesying early victory ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... merely smiles and pities. Like Mark Twain he might well say: "The more I see of men, the more they amuse me—and the more I pity them." He is simpatico precisely because of this ironical commiseration, this infinite disillusionment, this sharp understanding of the narrow limits of human volition and responsibility.... I have said that he does not criticize God. One may even imagine him ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... of party than of patriotism; and indeed sir John declared, that the remarks he made upon the occasion were rather in discharge of the duty he owed to his country, than in hope of seeing his sentiments espoused by the majority. Some sharp altercation was used in the debate which arose on this subject; and many severe invectives were levelled at those who negotiated, as well as at those who approved and confirmed the treaty. But Mr. Pelham, who sustained the whole weight of the debate on the side ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... "On that occasion the feud between the two sections of the party was disclosed in all its intensity. The conflict, which was sharp and ended in the election of Daniel S. Dickinson for the six-years term, in spite of the strong opposition of the Radical members of the caucus, was a triumph for the Conservatives, and a defeat for the friends of Governor Wright. The closing years of the great statesman's life were overcast ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... himself would never come to endure it; but he knew enough to be sure that neither battle nor honour had had any part here. The man had been well-dressed in brown and tawny velvet, was probably handsome in a sharp, foreign sort. There was a ring upon his finger, a torn badge upon his left breast, with traces of a device in white threads which could not be well made out. Puzzling over it, Prosper thought to read three white forms on it—water-bougets, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... protestation; that in that disquisition and search he proceeded with humility and diffidence in himself; and by that which he took to be the safest way; namely, frequent prayers, and an indifferent affection to both parties; and, indeed, Truth had too much light about her to be hid from so sharp an inquirer; and he had too much ingenuity not to acknowledge he ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... continued to treat his case as though he had been a Liberal. The witnesses for the defense he pretended that he could not find, or rather that he had frightened them off; and finally, after nearly a year of such sharp practice, and about two months after Fabrice's last return to Bologna, on a certain Friday, the Marquise Raversi, intoxicated with joy, stated publicly in her salon that on the following day "the sentence which had just been passed upon ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... parliament, should be applicable to such purposes, for the adjustment and settlement of tithes in Ireland, as by an act of parliament of this session should be provided." This amendment gave rise to a lengthy and sharp debate, but it was thrown out by a large majority, and the ministerial resolution was then carried by two hundred and thirty-five votes against one hundred and seventy-one. At this stage, however, the progress of the bill ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... which their course had wavered, and it continued to waver while they just stood off. This little effect was sudden and rapid, so rapid that Strether's sense of it was separate only for an instant from a sharp start of his own. He too had within the minute taken in something, taken in that he knew the lady whose parasol, shifting as if to hide her face, made so fine a pink point in the shining scene. It was too prodigious, a chance in a million, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... action and in their liberal and bold commercial policy, and the state began to languish. Even the alliance asked for was at first refused, and was only renewed in 590 after urgent entreaties. The equally guilty but powerless Cretans escaped with a sharp rebuke. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... saying the sharp things that so often came from her red lips? She MUST, if she would ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks

... saw a light there. Of late, when she had waked in the night, she had always looked, but always until now the little house had been wrapped in the darkness. Because of that light, she could not sleep again, and so presently she rose, and in the sharp chill of the room, bathed and dressed, though what had once been her savage satisfaction in braving the cold had long since become mere undramatic ability to endure it without thinking. With Mary, life and all its constructive rites had won what the sacrificial has never ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale

... his two brothers, and all the principal chiefs, appeared extremely anxious for our safety; and after the prisoners were on board, kept watch during the night; were always keeping a sharp look out upon our cables, and continually spurring the centinels to be careful in their duty. The prisoners' wives visited the ship daily and brought their children, who were permitted to be carried to their unhappy fathers. To see the poor captives in irons, weeping over their tender offspring, ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards

... had grown dreamy and abstracted. The hand that had pushed back her heavy hair fell on her lap. She looked at it and its shining rings, and Mrs Jefferson's sharp glance followed hers. Was there a plain gold circlet among that glittering array?—was the beautiful stranger ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)

... chapter I was able to sit up and propel myself in a wheel-chair, and soon was having races with the champion chair-speeders of the other wards. There was a long inclined plane that was the cause of many accidents, for there was a sharp turn at the bottom and our chariots would get out of control. I have more than once turned a double somersault and it is a wonder I did not break my head, and several candid friends said it was cracked anyway. We had concerts in the hall every night, and as it was a couple ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... me down in a spot where the verdure was deepest and softest. But, just as the tender foot of Eurydice was pierced by the concealed viper, so meseemed that a hidden serpent came upon me, as I lay stretched on the grass, and pierced me under the left breast. The bite of the sharp fang, when it first entered, seemed to burn me. But afterward, feeling somewhat reassured, and yet afraid of something worse ensuing, I thought I clasped the cold serpent to my bosom, fancying that by communicating to it ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio

... visited the earls of Sunderland, Northampton, and Montague, at their different houses in the country; and proceeded with a splendid retinue to Lincoln, from whence he repaired to Welbeck, a seat belonging to the duke of Newcastle in Nottinghamshire, where he was attended by Dr. Sharp, archbishop of York, and his clergy. He lodged one night with lord Brooke at Warwick castle, dined with the duke of Shrewsbury at Ryefort, and by the way of Woodstock, made a solemn entry into Oxford, having been met at some distance ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... mountains rose high above their heads, and "Father Abraham" looked as though it were about to fall and crush them as they seated themselves at its base, to gaze upon the prospect before them. Charles adjusted Matilda's shawl as she seated herself by his side, with a sharp cough. ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... the operatic performance, was again delicately fingering her hair in that large bedroom whose mirrors daily reflected the leisured process of her toilette. Her black skirt trimmed with yellow made a sudden sharp contrast with the pale tints of her corset and her long bare arms. The bodice lay like a trifling fragment on the blue-green eiderdown of her bed, a pair of satin shoes glistened in front of the fire, and two chairs bore the discarded finery of the day. The dressing-table was littered ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... were unvexed with internal dissensions. This, both in the case of the Roman, the Lutheran, and the Calvinistic Churches of the Continent, requires to be somewhat qualified; still, as compared with the rival schools of the English Church, Puritan and Anglican, the contrast is a true and a sharp one. Mr. Gladstone adopts from a German writer a view which is certainly not new to many in England, that "the Reformation, as a religious movement, took its shape in England, not in the sixteenth century ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... vexation and merely said to herself that men are as jealous of each other as women are jealous, that a man cannot bear to hear another man praised by a woman. Possibly—she was not sure of this—possibly Sir Seymour had noticed that she was interested in the stranger. He was very sharp in all matters connected with her. His affection increased his natural acuteness. She resolved to be very careful, even very ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... the balsam are blunt or rounded at the ends and some of them are even dented or notched in place of being sharp-pointed. Each spine or leaf is a scant one inch in length and very flat; the upper part is grooved and of a dark bluish-green color. The under-side is much lighter, often almost silvery white. The balsam blossoms in April ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard

... there have been disturbances and inconveniences—and even hardships. And there will be many, many more before we finally win. Yes, 1943 will not be an easy year for us on the home front. We shall feel in many ways in our daily lives the sharp pinch of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt

... Indeed, national output, consumption, and investment declined throughout the first half of the 1980s because of internal disorders, lack of government administrative control, and a growing foreign debt. A sharp increase in foreign aid, attracted by an economic reform policy, has resulted in successive years of economic growth since 1985. Agricultural output, nevertheless, is only at about 75% of its 1981 ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... directly concerned in the quarrel. Thus the war which England and France declared at the end of March against Russia was one which they were left to pursue, with the help of Turkey, alone. Lord John Russell urged that it should be short and sharp, and with characteristic promptitude sketched out, with Lord Panmure's help, a plan of campaign. He urged that ten thousand men should at once be raised for the Army, five thousand for the Navy, and that the services of fifteen thousand more be added ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... the treasure smil'd, Which I had found there, first shone glisteningly, Like to a golden mirror in the sun; Next answer'd: "Conscience, dimm'd or by its own Or other's shame, will feel thy saying sharp. Thou, notwithstanding, all deceit remov'd, See the whole vision be made manifest. And let them wince who have their withers wrung. What though, when tasted first, thy voice shall prove Unwelcome, on digestion it will turn To ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... in a deep pocket of the mountains. The valley is quite narrow, and on three sides, save where the two branches of Clear Creek have hewn out their canyons, the ridges rise at a sharp angle to a towering height, while here and there a white-cap peeps out through the depressions. Those parts of the narrow vale that are irrigated by the creek and its numerous tiny tributaries are beautiful in their garb of green, while the areas that are not thus refreshed are ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... encounter after the rejection of the Budget, Redmond and the leader of the Liberal party came to sharp differences. The general election had amply justified the advice which was urged by him on Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman when the House of Lords rejected the Education Bill in 1906—namely, that the Liberal party should take up at once the inevitable fight ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... you will be married!' said the field-mouse; 'don't be obstinate, or I shall bite you with my sharp white teeth! You will get a fine husband! The King himself has not such a velvet coat. His store-room and cellar are full, and you should be ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... and please the Omnipotent King!" So Sahim returned and told his uncle's derring-do to Gharib, who cried out to his men, saying, "Don your arms and mount your steeds and let us succour my father's brother!" So they took horse and fell upon the Infidels and put them to the edge of the sharp sword. By the morning they had killed nigh fifty-thousand of the Kafirs and made other thirty-thousand prisoners, and the rest of Ajib's army dispersed over the length and breadth of earth. Then the Moslems returned in victory and triumph, and Gharib rode out to meet his uncle, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... belief is that for six weeks the dead mother will come at night to suckle her child, and a pair of slippers or shoes are always put into the coffin with the corpse, for the mother has to travel over thistles, thorns, and sharp stones to reach her child. Widespread over Europe is this belief in the return of the mother, who has died in giving life to her little one. Till cock-crow in the morning she may suckle it, wash it, fondle it; the doors open of themselves for ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... Invective.—Invective may be a sharp weapon, but over-use blunts its edge. Even when the denunciation is just and true, it is an error of art to indulge in ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... engaged when Matilda returned. She was all a-tremble. Behind her, holding her arm, was a smallish, sharp-faced young man. ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott

... interested in the sport as if I had been waiting, rifle in hand, for big game. Soon the intruder peeped into my berth, looked cautiously around him, and then proceeded to walk stealthily across my feet. In an instant he was shot upwards. First was heard a sharp knock on the ceiling, and then a dull "thud" on the floor. The precise extent of the injuries inflicted I never discovered, for the victim had sufficient strength and presence of mind to effect his escape; and the gentleman at the other side of the cabin, who ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... whispered, adoring her innocence. Then as he lay, head cradled on her knees, looking up at her, all unbidden, a vision of the future in its sharp-cut ominous desolation flashed into his vision—the world without her!—the endless stretch of time—youth with no meaning, effort wasted, attainment without desire, loneliness, arid, terrible ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... pitched his camp at Jericho, [where the palm tree grows, and that balsam which is an ointment of all the most precious, which upon any incision made in the wood with a sharp stone, distills out thence like a juice,] [4] he marched in the morning to Jerusalem. Hereupon Aristobulus repented of what he was doing, and came to Pompey, had [promised to] give him money, and received him into Jerusalem, and desired that he ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... angry and sent forth several sharp hisses before I knew what I was doing ... the effect was an electric stillness for the moment. Then a roar of indignant applause drowned my protest. And I stopped and remained quiet, with much craning of necks about me, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... little while from the scented darkness into the dazzling air and marvellous landscape, which stretches still farther and farther in new wilfulness of grove and garden, until at last the craggy mountains of the Simmenthal rise out of it, sharp into the rolling of ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin

... continued her mother, soon afterwards, "and so the Collinses live very comfortable, do they? Well, well, I only hope it will last. And what sort of table do they keep? Charlotte is an excellent manager, I dare say. If she is half as sharp as her mother, she is saving enough. There is nothing extravagant in ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... walk down as far as Owen Hill in Middlesex county and thence seek a passage over into Lancaster. A negro, whose service I secured in return for Confederate money, transported me in a canoe, and landed me at Morattico. During the passage I kept a sharp lookout up and down the wide river for Yankee gunboats, fearing that even if I should escape Scylla I might fall into Charybdis; and indeed some of the marauding bluecoats had but recently ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway

... it turned off sharp and cool. The dogwoods which had been a solid color at nightfall now showed pink in one light and green in another, like changeable silk, as the first level rays of the sun came up over the rim of the earth ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... good warhorse—who seemed to scent battle in the air, and stood perfectly still, quivering with excitement—unslung his handgun from his shoulder, and levelled it at the leader of the band. The next instant a sharp report rang through the silent forest. The robber chief flung up his hands with a stifled cry and sank down upon the ground; whilst the other men, astonished beyond measure at this sudden attack from they knew not what quarter, ceased to heed their ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green

... to wield. First, son of Raghu, shall be thine The arm of Vengeance, strong, divine: The arm of Fate, the arm of Right, And Vishnu's arm of awful might:— That, before which no foe can stand, The thunderbolt of Indra's hand; And Siva's trident, sharp and dread, And that dire weapon, Brahma's Head. And two fair clubs, O royal child, One Charmer and one Pointed styled— With flame of lambent fire aglow, On thee, O Chieftain, I bestow. And Fate's dread ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... had done for Jimmie, a lone and melancholy howling from the woods almost convinced Renaud that the stories were true. He knew the wolf-cries—the howl for help, the love song, the lonely wail, and the sharp defiance of the Wolves. This was ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... has gone out of the world, and there is nothing left but lead and dross. See how sharp the green is under the gray, and note the clearness of the air. Everything is keen and hard upon the eye to-day; the sky is full of rain and the sea is a wild harmony in ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... Grandison away from the hotel on various errands. On one of these occasions Dick watched him for quite a distance down the street. Grandison had scarcely left the hotel when a long-haired, sharp-featured man came out behind him, followed him, soon overtook him, and kept along beside him until they turned the next corner. Dick's hopes were roused by this spectacle, but sank correspondingly when Grandison returned to the hotel. As Grandison said nothing about the ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... watch and becomes industrious; he thinks of his business even when abed or at his meals; he studies it, not from a distance, speculatively, in a general way, but on the spot, practically, in detail, in all its bearings and relationships, constantly calculating difficulties and resources, with such sharp insight and special information that for any other person to try to solve the daily problem which he solves, would be impossible, because nobody could possess or estimate as he can the precise elements which constitute ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... made a valuable discovery. Some of the seals have a habit, when the sea is frozen over, of cutting holes through the ice with their sharp claws, in order that they may get their heads above the water to breathe,—the seals not being able, as I have told you before, to breathe under water, like fish. They can keep their heads under water about an hour, by closing up their nostrils, so that not a drop can get in; and, during that time, ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... includes those which actually invade the body and feed upon its tissues instead of living simply upon swallowed food. It is difficult, however, to draw any sharp line separating the two classes. The bacteria which cause diphtheria (Fig. 28), for instance, do not really invade the body. They grow in the throat, attached to its walls, and are confined to this external location or to the superficial tissues. This bacillus is, in ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn

... consummate tact and prudence, for she contrived to live on excellent terms with half-a-dozen people of completely incompatible tempers. When the reins dropped from her dead hand a struggle ensued among these incompatible persons, who should pick them up. The struggle was sharp, but short. The elder brothers retired from the contest, and the reins were left in the Duke of Gloucester's hand. And woe to the infant Church of the Lollards, when Gloucester ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... mentioned before, and is gone with them back. He tells me further that the Duke of Buckingham was before the Council the other day, and there did carry it very submissively and pleasingly to the King; but to my Lord Arlington, who do prosecute the business, he was most bitter and sharp, and very slighting. As to the letter about his employing a man to cast the King's nativity, says he to the King, "Sir," says he, "this is none of my hand, and I refer it to your Majesty whether you do not know this hand." The King answered, that it was indeed none of his, and that he ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... moves as you call it to mind, do you think, I say, that you can describe it? Do you think that you can give a man, in black and white, with ink, and on paper, any real notion of that most tremendous spectacle, a sharp bowed ship running before a gale of wind through the ice in the great South Sea, where every wave rolls round the world? Go to—read Tom Cringle, who has given up his whole soul to descriptions, and see how many pictures dwell in your mind's eye, after reading ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... "Marse Gerald Sharp and his wife, Miss Annie, owned us and, Child, dey was grand folks. Deir old home was 'way up in Jackson County 'twixt Athens and Jefferson. Dat big old plantation run plumb back down to de Oconee River. Yes, mam, all dem rich river ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... allowed speculation a free hand in Rhodesia as he had done at Kimberley or at Johannesburg. He was most careful that outsiders should not hear about what was going on, and took endless precautions not to expose the companies that worked the old dominions of poor King Lobengula, to the sharp criticism of the European Stock Exchanges. Their shares remained in the hands of people on whose discretion Rhodes believed that he could rely, and no one ever heard of gambling in scrip exciting the minds of the inhabitants of Buluwayo ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill



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