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Sway   Listen
verb
Sway  v. t.  (past & past part. swayed; pres. part. swaying)  
1.
To move or wield with the hand; to swing; to wield; as, to sway the scepter. "As sparkles from the anvil rise, When heavy hammers on the wedge are swayed."
2.
To influence or direct by power and authority; by persuasion, or by moral force; to rule; to govern; to guide. "The will of man is by his reason swayed." "She could not sway her house." "This was the race To sway the world, and land and sea subdue."
3.
To cause to incline or swing to one side, or backward and forward; to bias; to turn; to bend; warp; as, reeds swayed by wind; judgment swayed by passion. "As bowls run true by being made On purpose false, and to be swayed." "Let not temporal and little advantages sway you against a more durable interest."
4.
(Naut.) To hoist; as, to sway up the yards.
Synonyms: To bias; rule; govern; direct; influence; swing; move; wave; wield.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sway" Quotes from Famous Books



... the political world than the author of the Annals. The author of the Annals, surpassing Tacitus with respect to the moral world, wrote as he did, from knowing better the motives that influence men's minds, and the passions that sway their hearts. The result of two such very different men composing two such very different works, is, that the contrast is almost as great when we turn from the History to the Annals, as when we turn ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... under the seal of the Kaid of Tetuan. Israel had drawn it, and sealed it also, without the knowledge or sanction of Ben Aboo; for, knowing what manner of man Ben Aboo was, and knowing Katrina also, and the sway she held over him, and thinking it useless to attempt to move either to mercy, he had determined to make this last use of his office, at ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... undoing the mischief wrought by the demagog and the agitator, but also in undoing the good that the honest reformer, the true upholder of popular rights, has painfully and laboriously achieved. Corruption is never so rife as in communities where the demagog and the agitator bear full sway, because in such communities all moral bands become loosened, and hysteria and sensationalism replace the spirit of sound judgment and fair dealing as between man and man. In sheer revolt against the squalid ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... When I paced the headlands loosed from dull employ, The waves huzza'd like a multitude below In the sway of an ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy

... subjects of despotic Russia; but a native slave, stripped of every right which God and nature gave him, and which the high spirit of our revolution declared inalienable which he himself could not surrender, and which man could not take from him. Is he not then the subject of despotic sway? ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... aggrandizement of Russia is permissible over regions where she replaces barbarism even by a crude civilization, there can be no excuse for allowing her to take up a position in territories acknowledging our sway, where she can directly menace British interests in India, or indirectly impose an excessive strain upon the resources and the armed strength of our eastern dominions. The guardianship of the frontier is, therefore, an act of defense, not of defiance, and is an elementary and ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... her sway. This visionary madness, intoxicating while it lasted, passed off by degrees, and I descended the slope ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... outbreak from Andrews. I wondered why he did not try to get his men with him and clap the fellow in irons. There was every reason to believe they would have obeyed him at first, but he hesitated for some religious purpose better known to himself, until the fellow had obtained such a sway over the crew that it was now doubtful if it could be done without an open fight between them and the men he ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains

... European interests in China owed little or nothing to the forbearance and moderation of either the Spaniards or Portuguese. They tyrannized over the Chinese subject to their sway, and they employed all their resources in driving away other Europeans from what they chose to consider their special commercial preserves. Thus the Dutch were expelled from the south by the Portuguese and compelled ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... the fire of longing love allay! Would Heaven I wot an e'er the days shall deign conjoin our lots, * Join us in pleasant talk o' nights, in Union glad and gay: Shall my love's palace hold two hearts that savour joy, and I * Strain to my breast the branch I saw upon the sand-hill[FN61] sway? O favour of full moon in sheen, never may sun o' thee * Surcease to rise from Eastern rim with all-enlightening ray! I'm well content with passion-pine and all its bane and bate * For luck in love is evermore ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... together again and we may make holiday as before. And how peacefully the good ships used to lie in the same harbour, under the same sun; it seemed as if they had reached their goal, and it seemed as if there was a goal. But soon the mighty sway of our tasks laid on us as from of old sundered and drove us into different seas and different zones; and it may be that we shall never meet again and it may be that we shall meet and not know each other, so deeply have the different seas and suns changed us. The law that is over us ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... be inferred from what has already been mentioned of the conduct of the Russian agents towards their own countrymen, that the circumstance of the unfortunate islanders, who are also subjected to their sway, cannot be very eligible. A single quotation from the work referred to, will answer every purpose we can have in view in alluding to them in this place. "The chief agent of the American Company is the boundless despot over ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... us apparently waste and solitary space, howsoever many they may be, 'thick as the autumn leaves in Vallambrosa' or as the motes that dance in the sunshine, they are all friends and allies and elder brethren of those who seek for Jesus with a loving heart. No creature that owns His sway can touch or injure or need terrify the soul that follows after Christ. 'All the servants of our King in heaven and earth are one,' and He sends forth His brightest and loftiest to be brethren and ministers to them ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... intended to retire for ever from the office. Previous to my taking leave of Monsieur O——and his charming family, we walked in the gardens, where our conversation turned upon the extraordinary genius, who in the character of first consul of the french, unites a force, and extent of sway unknown to the kings of France, from their first appearance, to ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... and with an attempt to look fierce—which was a perfect failure, by the way, for Martha Gusset's was one of those countenances that never can by any possibility look angry, only a little comic when temper had the sway. ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn

... the child had been given over to the tyranny of two aunts, and a grandmother. As for her father, he had never married again, but he had never paid much attention to her. He had been a reserved, silent man, himself under the sway of his mother and sisters. Charles Eustace had had an obsession to the effect that the skies of his own individual sphere would fall to his and his child's destruction, if his female relatives deserted him, and that ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... upon earth, except power. When she came to her senses, and perceived that she was alone, she felt as if she was abandoned by all the world. The dreadful words "for ever," still sounded in her ears. She was tempted to yield her humour to her affection. It was but a momentary struggle; the love of sway prevailed. When she came more fully to herself, she recurred to the belief that her husband could not be in earnest, or at least that he would never persist, if she had but the courage to dare him ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... writing held almost undisputed sway until the sixth century after the Christian era, when the quill (penna) came ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... plan, For he's, chief of all, the Transport man. He finds the Fleet in coal and victuals (Supplying the beer—if not the skittles); He sees to the bad'uns that get imprisoned, And settles what uniform's worn (or isn't).... Even the stubbornest own the sway Of the Lord of Food and ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various

... from forced servitude. It is hard to please where there are so many masters; and petty tyranny will exist, and cause much discontent before it is discovered, even where the best discipline prevails. The imperious behaviour of the young midshipmen, who assume the same despotic sway which is exercised over themselves, as soon as their superiors are out of sight and hearing, was often extremely galling to Newton Forster, and it frequently required much forbearance not to retort. However in strict justice this might be warranted, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... judge himself and his life; he who was the criminal, yet august upon his seat, to weigh all and give the decision; he before whom all those great advocates were pleading,—a haze stole over his eyes. He was but a man, and he was weary, and subject to the sway of the little over the great, the moment over the life, which is the condition of man. While yet the judgment was not given or the issue decided, while still the pleadings were in his ears, in a moment ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... cove oysters while in the can, but the system was not well understood, and those who had it in charge only succeeded in making the can itself more plump. But now oysters are kept on ground feed and given nothing to do for a few weeks, and even the older and overworked sway-backed and rickety oysters of the dim and murky past are made to fill out, and many of them have to put a gore in the waistband of their shells. I only speak of the oyster incidentally, as one of the objects toward which science has turned its attention, and I assert with the utmost confidence ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... act like a brute. He has reason to guide and control his appetites. Too many, however, forget, and act like brutes instead of as men. It would, in effect, prove very greatly conducive to man's interests were the generative impulses placed absolutely under the sway of right reason, chastity, forecast, ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... should be. On the whole she succeeded pretty well and committed few errors of deportment. Outwardly she controlled herself from the first; for, before her first cowed sensations had worn off, her adoration of Causidiena had gained full sway over her. Yet inwardly she suffered more and more acutely as time went on, partly feeling that she must burst out in spite of herself, ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... his Excellency the Minister of War, who holds sway over the royal armies—they consist of two hundred and thirty uniformed Kanakas, mostly Brigadier Generals, and if the country ever gets into trouble with a foreign power we shall probably hear from them. I knew an American whose copper-plate visiting card ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... scarce before, so that the results seemed much as if a fairy in finance had touched the difficult problems with a mystic wand. It was, however, the effect of truth entering where promotors had held sway before, or where addle-pated sons of constructive fathers, now departed, had been trying to make the business go on what they knew of actresses and automobiles. These concerns did so well under the receivership that when they began business anew, John MacDonald was ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... is not yet in existence that can present us a better government and wiser institutions than the British. Long may Canada recognise her rule, and rejoice in her sway! Should she ever be so unwise as to relinquish the privileges she enjoys under the sovereignty of the mother country, she may seek protection nearer and fare worse! The sorrows and trials that I experienced during my first eight years' residence ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... you are perfectly contented with your fate. War might deprive you of your Khannish dignity, while in peaceful times you can peaceably retain it. It matters not to you whose servant you may be so long as you hold sway in your own domain, and you call him a blockhead who does not look after himself first of all. Yes, Kaplan Giraj, I am a blockhead no doubt, for I am not afraid to risk losing this wretched life, awaiting my reward in another world. I was not born in silks and purples but in the love of ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai

... great advantages: it was firmly fixed in the bank on either side, so that it did not sway about, and, being the trunk of a fir-tree with the bark still left on, its surface offered some grip. Rona's progress was slow but steady. She worked herself over by a few inches at a time. When she reached the ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... writer,—Thomas Gold Appleton. In the third he would have recognized a champion of liberty known wherever that word is spoken, an orator whom to hear is to revive all the traditions of the grace, the address, the commanding sway of the silver-tongued eloquence of the most renowned ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... others being Ecuador and New Granada, which became Colombia). For most of the first half of the 20th century, Venezuela was ruled by generally benevolent military strongmen, who promoted the oil industry and allowed for some social reforms. Democratically elected governments have held sway since 1959. Hugo CHAVEZ, president since 1999, has promoted a controversial policy of "democratic socialism," which purports to alleviate social ills while at the same time attacking globalization and undermining regional stability. Current concerns include: a weakening ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... drill. Will you not, in this hour of national peril, gratefully welcome the aid which they so eagerly proffer, to overthrow that slave power which has so long ruled the North, and now, that you spurn its sway, is bent on crushing YOU? Will you not abjure that vulgar hate which has conspired with slavery against liberty in our land, and thus roll from the sepulcher, where they have buried it alive, the stone which has so long imprisoned their victim? The army of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... palm (Cocos nucifera) is an Indian and South Sea Islands Prince; but his sway extends now over all tropical countries. The cocoa-nut palm begins to bear fruit in from seven to eight years after planting, and it bears on for no less ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... a woman to be emperor; it was not till late in the Middle Ages that Spain saw a queen regnant, and France has never yet allowed such rule. It was not till long after Saxo that the great queen of the North, Margaret, wielded a wider sway than that rejected ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... imperfections, fills him with love to. his fellow-man. He hears and believes and hopes and endures all things and thinketh no evil. The tones of his voice, the very expression of his countenance, become changed, love now controlling where human passions held sway. In short, he is not only a new creature in Jesus Christ, but the habitual and blessed consciousness ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... encountered her anywhere in the streets of Carlingford—by taking a sudden plunge into such society as was open to him in the town, and devoting himself to Miss Marjoribanks, the old physician's daughter. Nettie was not moved by these demonstrations, which showed her sway still undiminished over the doctor's angry and jealous heart. She did not regard the petulant shows of pretended indifference by which a more experienced young woman might have consoled herself. She had enough to do, ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... the first time since he had adopted his dual role, Loder slept ill. He was not a man over whom imagination held any powerful sway—his doubts and misgivings seldom ran to speculation, upon future possibilities; nevertheless, the fact that, consciously or unconsciously, he had adopted a new attitude towards Eve came home to him with unpleasant force during ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... restoration of the city's ancient rule. But he governed like a madman or an inflated fool, and was slain in a riot of the streets.[10] Scarce one of the famous cities succeeded in retaining its republican form. Milan became a duchy. Florence fell under the sway of the Medici. In Venice a few rich families seized all authority, and while the fame and territory of the republic were extended, its dogeship became a mere figurehead. All real power was lodged in the dread and secret council of three.[11] Genoa was defeated and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... written an article in the Quarterly, and is very likely to speak, and refute M'Culloch; and these five people, in whose nomination I have no more agency than I have in the nomination of the toll-keepers of the Bosphorus, are to make laws for me and my family—to put their hands in my purse, and to sway the future destinies of this country; and when the neighbours step in, and beg permission to say a few words before these persons are chosen, there is an universal cry of rain, confusion, and destruction—'We have become a great people under Vellum and Plumpkin—under Vellum ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... their arrangements to prevent the spread of Socialistic propaganda beyond certain useful limits. As long as the Socialists only threatened capital they were not seriously interfered with, for the Government knew quite well that the undisputed sway of the employer was not for the ultimate good of the State. The standard of comfort must not be pitched too low if men are to be ready to die for their country. But the moment the Socialists began to interfere seriously with the discipline of the Army the word went round, and the Socialists lost ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... the conquest the Colony was divided and sub-divided into provinces and military districts as they gradually yielded to the Spanish sway. Such districts, called Encomiendas, [97] were then farmed out to Encomenderos, who exercised little scruple in their rigorous exactions from the natives. Some of the Encomenderos acquired wealth during the terms of their holdings, whilst ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... who detains her" (Walker, page 226). Woman by being thus subject to the control, and dependent on the will of man, loses her self-dependence; and no human being can be deprived of this without a sense of degradation. The law should sustain and protect all who come under its sway, and not create a state of dependence and depression in any human being. The laws should not make woman a mere pensioner on the bounty of her husband, thus enslaving her will and degrading her to a ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... Their weary necks so poppies bow, O'erladen by the shower. But Nisus on the midmost flies, With Volscens, Volscens in his eyes: In clouds the warriors round him rise, Thick hailing blow on blow: Yet on he bears, no stint, no stay, Like thunderbolt his falchion's sway: Till as for aid the Rutule shrieks Plunged in his throat the weapon reeks: The dying hand has reft away The life-blood of its foe. Then, pierced to death, asleep he fell On the dead ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... redistributing fields and disturbing the owners of the allotments so little that one can only praise the intelligence and good sense of the methods they employ? Fewer fields change hands under the management of the Russian Commune than where personal property holds sway, and is for ever carrying its quarrels into courts of law. And are we to believe that the inhabitants of a great European city would be less intelligent and less capable of organization ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... felt a sharp pain shoot through his chest. It seemed as though the air had been suddenly shut from his lungs and that he could neither speak nor breathe. He heard an exclamation and saw Owen coming toward him. Owen, who had seen him stop and sway, was asking a question. A dim blur of faces—an endless journey along a street and up a narrow stairway—and Pete lay staring at yellow wall-paper heavily sprinkled with impossible blue roses. Owen was giving him whiskey—a ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... It is most ungrateful when we are speaking of that event, and the actors in it, not to make mention of our Revolutionary Mothers. In the French Revolution women were conspicuous actors. If Madame Roland and her coadjutors had been allowed to sway the public councils, the results would have been far ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... that the end of that strife would be to make the country more great, more rich, more formidable; and Napoleon thought it was the very moment for attacking the Monroe doctrine, and for making, as he said, "the Latin race hold equal sway with the Anglo-Saxon over the New World." If he meant by the "Latin race" the effete half-Indian, Mexican and South American peoples, which were to be set as rivals against the Anglo-Saxon race, represented by Yankees, Southerners, ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... our ditty, Strangers coming from afar; Let poor minstrels move your pity, Give us welcome, soothe our care: In this mansion, as they tell us, Christmas wassell keeps to-day; And, as the king of all good fellows, Reigns with uncontrouled sway. ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... her home, and the young boat-builder to whom she is engaged, and to fly to Italy. Now to this story, as Dickens tells it, French criticism objects that he dwells exclusively on the sin and sorrow, and sets aside that in which the French novelist would delight, viz., the mad force and irresistible sway of passion. To which English criticism may, I think, reply, that the "pity of it," the wide-working desolation, are as essentially part of such an event as the passion; and, therefore, even from an exclusively ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... finding no spot to lie down in. He grew tired and sleepy, and looked wistfully about for a place he could consent to lie in, but gave it up, and spreading all four legs well apart he tried to stand it out. Occasionally his eyes would close and his head droop, his body would slowly sway back and forth till he made a greater nod, his nose would go into the mud, and gathering himself up he would lift his head with a most piteous whine, protesting ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... New Hebrides dance, or rather sway, to and fro in the midst of a circle formed by the men, with whom they do not directly mingle. They leap, show their genital parts to the men, and imitate the movements of coitus. Meanwhile the men unfasten the manou (penis-wrap) from their girdles with one hand, with the other imitating ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... king conferred a new commission upon La Salle, investing him with the powers almost of viceroyalty. The whole valley of the Mississippi, from Lake Michigan to the Gulf, was called Louisiana, in honor of the then reigning king. The sway of La Salle embraced the whole of this almost limitless region. Seven missionaries accompanied the expedition, under the general supervision of Father Membre, whose virtues and eminent qualification for the station ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... sovereign to be entitled to live as an ordinary individual. His private advantages impose on him a public character. His rank, and his enormous profits, makes it incumbent on him to perform proportionate services, and that, even under the sway of the intendant, he owes to his vassals, to his tenants, to his feudatories the support of his mediation, of his ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... gross; Ducharme, 25 gross, and Blossom, 10 gross (but he puts his thumb over this last hastily), and you tell him to send you a few. As I said before, I believe the best buyer is more or less influenced by being told what others are doing, and with the smaller trade it is constantly used to sway their decision. ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher

... on Herod's natal day, Who o'er Judea's land held sway. He married his own brother's wife, Wicked Herodias. She the life Of John the Baptist long had sought, Because he openly had taught That she a life unlawful led, Having ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... sudden shiver of regretful change Sighs through the whispering boughs that overhead Sway in the wind's breath: down the red sun dips, And in the twilight's arms the day ...
— All Round the Year • Edith Nesbit

... pictures of the hopeless Jewish resistance to Roman sway adds another leaf to his record of the famous wars of the world. The book is one ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... are on the ground, the man begins to sway his body violently till the tender and supple palm is swinging like a pendulum and almost striking the trees on either side. Watching his opportunity, the man grasps one of these and transfers himself to it with the nimbleness of a monkey. In this way he makes an aerial journey round the garden and ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... can be found in all the world. New York especially contains a great number of men who year in and year out work hard for money—in order to give it away! The depth and breadth of the philanthropic spirit in New York City is to me the most surprising of all the strange impulses that sway the inhabitants of that seething mass of mixed humanity. Every imaginable cause for the benefit of mankind,—save one,—has received, and still is receiving, ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... storm king's sway. All were laid low before him. With the united fury of fiends of Hades, he laughed in demoniacal glee at the desperation of the Arctic travelers under his heel. The whole world was now his. Far from the icy and unknown wastes of ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... looked for signs and wonders, That o'er men should give me sway; Thirsting to be more than mortal, I was ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... same record is repeated, as in other Catholic nations. In European countries where Protestantism is taught there is but one out of every ten that cannot read and write, but in the same countries, where Catholicism has absolute sway, there is but one out of every 125 that can ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... rivers in the world, you shall find them but bubbles of water. Some would think the souls of princes were brought forth by some more weighty cause than those of meaner persons: they are deceiv'd, there 's the same hand to them; the like passions sway them; the same reason that makes a vicar go to law for a tithe-pig, and undo his neighbours, makes them spoil a whole province, and batter down goodly cities ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster

... sluggish pool, 'Have all the solitary vale imbrowned; 'Fled each fair form, and mute each melting sound. 'The raven croaks forlorn on naked spray: 'And, hark! the river, bursting every mound, 'Down the vale thunders; and, with wasteful sway, 'Uproots the grove, and ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... Comtesse de Rully and her husband had a suite at Chantilly. This was an arrangement which Sophie, as reigning Queen of Chantilly, did not like at all. While the Rully woman remained at Chantilly Sophie could not think that her sway over the Prince was quite as absolute as she wished. It took her six years of badgering her protector, from 1819 to 1825, to bring about ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... home. In the parlor he came upon her unannounced; and she started and stared at him as at a ghost. She did not make a sound, but he saw the pallor sweep over her face, he saw her tremble and sway. She was like a reed shaken by the wind— so fragile and so sensitive! He got a sudden sense of the storm of emotion that was shaking her; and it frightened him, while at the same time it thrilled ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... of abandoning their children. The wholesale and retail slaughter of slaves, civil and foreign wars, also lent their aid. In Rome (where property held full sway), these three means were employed so effectively, and for so long a time, that finally the empire found itself without inhabitants. When the barbarians arrived, nobody was to be found; the fields were no longer cultivated; grass grew in the ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... men! Her face the book of praises, where is read Nothing but curious pleasures, as from thence Sorrow were ever razed, and testy wrath Could never be her mild companion. You gods that made me man, and sway in love, That have inflamed desire in my breast To taste the fruit of yon celestal tree, Or die in the adventure, be my helps, As I am son and servant to your will, To compass such ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]

... you also as far as you can to meet us. Join at least in the declaration we propose. Your people have confidence in you. They will believe you. The declaration, made with substantial unanimity by this Conference, will tranquillize public sentiment, and give a chance for reason to resume its sway, and patriotic counsels to ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... tied, Hotep," he began bluntly. "I permit the sway of this knave over my father because I am constrained. Till he begins to achieve confusion or bring about bad government I must let him alone. There is no love between us. We have no quarrel, but I despise him for that ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... mean the man whose very movements sway the money markets of the world, the man who could, if he chose, ruin any nation, make war impossible; who could if he had ten more years of life and was allowed to live, draw to himself and his own following the ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... ambitious, and selfish, and domineering in their characters, have a strong personal interest in the establishment of order and of justice between man and man throughout all the regions which are under their sway. In fact, the greater their ambition, their selfishness, and their pride, the stronger will this interest be; for, just in proportion as order, industry, and internal tranquillity prevail in a country, just in that proportion ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... Examinations held sway for nearly a week thereafter. But "it's a long lane that has no turning" and, at last there came a time when the boys ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young

... neutrals and of unneutral non-belligerent governments, and the normal attitude of such neutrals and non-belligerents toward each belligerent. The diplomatic skill of the opposing governments and the ability of propaganda to sway public opinion abroad may well determine the manner in which neutrality ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College

... and courage come again in the world; now restore the reign of cheer; now break the bonds of vice; now bring back an earthly Paradise! With your strong bodies, your glad hearts, your vigorous minds, your imperial sway over the hearts of one another, your persuasive control over the feelings of your elders, it is for you to make the future what you will. Oh, make it the dawn of that civilization, of that Christianity, when again "the ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... true that the external forms of nature exert a hidden but powerful sway over the dawning perceptions of the mind, and shape its thoughts to harmony with the things around, then most certainly ought Mr. Verdant Green to have been born a poet; for he grew up amid those scenes whose immortality is, that they inspired the soul of Shakespeare ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... escaped even the careful investigation of the analytical chemists, has pervaded the being of BULMER, and has induced him to patronise the inhabited world? I thought so once. Indeed I have lost myself in conjectures on this point. But I now know that BULMER has fallen under your sway, and that you, my dear POMPOSITY, direct his every movement, and inspire his every thought. Now, the other night, when, as I say, I was dining at his table, BULMER was in one of his most glorious and vain-glorious moods. Patronage radiated from him upon my humble self and the rest of the ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand

... wind enough to sway a twig!" he corrected curtly. He lingered a while longer, his angry gaze continuing to search the darkness, before he drew back into the room. "It's quite likely you saw him," he muttered. "No doubt he saw you, too, and heard you—and has slunk off with ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... divers-agglomerations, government was everywhere almost equally irregular and powerless to maintain order or found an enduring state. Kymrians, Gauls, or Iberians were nearly equally ignorant, improvident, slaves to the shiftings of their ideas and the sway of their passions, fond of war and idleness and rapine and feasting, of gross and savage pleasures. All gloried in hanging from the breast-gear of their horses, or nailing to the doors of their houses, the heads of their enemies. All sacrificed human victims ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... accustomed groove. The nine days' wonder of that put off wedding had ceased to be a wonder. It still, it is true, gave zest to conversation in the servants' hall, but upstairs it was never mentioned. The even routine of daily life had resumed its sway, and things looked something as they did before, except that Mr. Harman grew to all eyes perceptibly weaker, that Charlotte was very grave and pale and quiet, that old Uncle Jasper was no longer in and out of the house, and that John Hinton never came near it. The luxurious house in Prince's ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade

... reality was a Dictator. The government was centered more than ever in one man. Many strange qualities blended in this austere autocrat, some of which command our admiration. He was stern and painfully severe, yet much sagacity and justice characterized his administration. During his sway of power the Reformed Churches in his own realms and on the Continent were by him heroically defended. He became, in the hand of the Lord, "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." The persecuted found shelter under his shadow, in the providence of the Lord. He avenged the massacre ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... our bliss Full and perfect is, But now begins; for from this happy day The Old Dragon under ground, In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurped sway, And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swinges the scaly ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various

... Church, and would fain have mankind believe that the temporal government of the Popes has been an unappreciated blessing, and far superior to that of any other, and to the present government of United Free Italy under the constitutional sway of King Humbert, in particular. Since 1859 the Italians of what was once known as the States of the Church, have been deprived of this great blessing of the Pontifical rule, and with what dire results ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... chieftains over them. The members of the clan claimed consanguinity to the chief. The idea never entered into the mind of a Highlander that the chief was anything more than the head of the clan. The relation he sustained was subordinate to the will of the people. Sometimes his sway was unlimited, but necessarily paternal. The tribesmen were strongly attached to the person of their chief. He stood in the light of a protector, who must defend them and right their wrongs. They rallied to his support, and in defense they had a contempt for danger. The sway of the ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... the merry day O'er which St. Nicholas holds sway; A day that's sent your hearts to fill With peace and joy and glad goodwill. And down through all the centuries long Echo the angel words and song, And every year again I tell The old sweet ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard

... constitutes real dignity or authority. She had, in point of fact, no authority over him; no one can have, not even parents, over a young man of his age, except that personal influence which is the strongest sway of all. ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... women of sense, wit, feeling, triumph in their various arts: yours are superior. Their empire, absolute as it sometimes may be, is perpetually subject to sudden revolutions. With them, a man has some chance of equal sway: with a fool he has none. Have they hearts and understandings? Then the one may be touched, or the other in some unlucky moment convinced; even in their very power lies their greatest danger:—not so with you. In vain let the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... button on their bosoms dear Or slender wrists, then making tight The laces round their ankles light; For folk were wont within that land To cast the ball from hand to hand, Dancing meanwhile full orderly. Lovely to look on was the sway Of the slim maidens neath the ball As they swung back to note its fall With dainty balanced feet; and fair The bright out-flowing, golden hair, As swiftly yet in measured wise One maid ran forth to ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... sway of a fish's tail, the edges of which curl over and grasp the water, may in this manner be identified without being positively seen, and the dark outline of its body known to exist against the equally dark water or bank. Shift, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... startled at this bold speaking in his wife, which, to him, amounted to little less than rebellion against his authority. As the head of the family, it was his prerogative to rule; and he had ruled for years with almost undisputed sway. Not in the least inclined did he feel to give up now, the power which he believed, of right, belonged to him. A sharp retort trembled for a moment on his lips; but he kept back its utterance. He did not, however, ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur

... two lines of ancestry, the prospective mother may be able to control and supervise the tendencies from her line. She must do all in her power before the birth of a child to sway it for good. She may then save herself years of worry and sorrow and ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley

... an author. Therefore, let us take what we get, and be thankful. What right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well off to have got so much from a man of this lord's station, who does not live in a garret, but "has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again, we say, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... under most favorable conditions, from July to September opens a succession of pink flowers that often fade to white. The yellow eye is bordered with carmine. They measure about one inch across, and are usually solitary at the ends of branches, or else sway on slender peduncles from the axils. The upper leaves are narrow and bract-like; those lower down gradually widen as ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... back a golden answer. Her eyes, hardly raised to those of the tall Scotchman, were wide, gray, and level—the eyes of Pallas Athene; her features, too, were goddess-like. One hand upon the bulwarks, she seemed, even as she listened, to be poised for flight, balancing to the sway of ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... evening; how forms and features were passed in review; how the jewelled, smooth-skinned, doll-like beauties usurped the admiration of the minute, and how the indefinably sympathetic air of less pretentious belles prolonged their magnetic sway to the close ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... the Romans comprised almost all the portion of Asia Minor lying north of the Taurus and west of Bithynia, Galatia and Cappadocia. Even Caria, which had been declared free after the war with Perseus, seems to have again fallen under the sway of the Attalid kings. The monarchy also included the Thracian Chersonese and most of the Aegean islands.[542] But the whole of this territory was not included in the new province of Asia. The Chersonese was annexed to the province of ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... Vulcan's smoky sway precludes An assignation in the woods, I shall not linger less ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various

... Atlantis, Plato probably intended to show that a state, such as the ideal Athens, was invincible, though matched against any number of opponents (cp. Rep.). Even in a great empire there might be a degree of virtue and justice, such as the Greeks believed to have existed under the sway of the first Persian kings. But all such empires were liable to degenerate, and soon incurred the anger of the gods. Their Oriental wealth, and splendour of gold and silver, and variety of colours, seemed also to be at variance ...
— Critias • Plato

... a spirit of righteous wrath and resistance throughout the Lower School, and a desire to combine for the general welfare. There was a certain exhilaration in the discovery that she was thus able to sway the minds of her companions. She had been popular in other schools, but she had never had a chance such as this. To do Gipsy justice, however, she thought far more of the cause she had taken up than of her own popularity. ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil

... Signore, than the Castilian? You overlook the unsatiated desire of the Spanish king to extend his sway in Italy." ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... unsurpassed for precision and frankness, the far-seeing statesman has revealed to us the ideal of justice and peace to which humanity in the near future is to attain, because the rule of force "is losing ground," and "sentiment, feeling and affection are gathering more and more sway over the affairs of men." The words of the distinguished American are familiar to the whole world, but here they are firmly engraved on our ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... And now that the twentieth century is coming to the age of discretion, we hear a new term of reproach, Mid-Victorian. It expresses the sum of all villainies in taste. For some fifty years in the nineteenth century the English-speaking race, as it now appears, was under the sway of Mrs. Grundy. It was living in a state of most reprehensible respectability, and Art was tied to the apron-strings of Morality. Everybody admired what ought not to be admired. We are only now beginning to pass judgment on the ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers



Words linked to "Sway" :   weave, totter, roll, vibrate, careen, displace, act upon, shake, work, rock, swag, powerfulness, move back and forth, lurch, lash, waver, power, hold sway, anti-sway bar, carry, swing, move, brachiate, pitching, oscillate, tilt, influence, pitch, nutate, persuade



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