Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Wrangle   Listen
noun
Wrangle  n.  An angry dispute; a noisy quarrel; a squabble; an altercation.
Synonyms: Altercation; bickering; brawl; jar; jangle; contest; controversy. See Altercation.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Wrangle" Quotes from Famous Books



... the dry? Fires from beneath and meteors from above, Portentous, unexampled, unexplained, Have kindled beacons in the skies, and the old And crazy earth has had her shaking fits More frequent, and foregone her usual rest. Is it a time to wrangle, when the props And pillars of our planet seem to fail, And nature with a dim and sickly eye To wait the close of all? But grant her end More distant, and that prophecy demands A longer respite, unaccomplished yet; Still they are frowning signals, and bespeak Displeasure in His ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... the same quantity as before he at least distributes whatever is necessary; the tenants can, at last, breathe comfortably, see clearly and not shiver; after ten years of suffocation, darkness and cold they are too well satisfied to wrangle with the proprietor, discuss his ways, and dispute over the monopoly by which he has constituted himself the arbitrator of their wants.—The same thing is done in the material order of things, in relation to the highways, dikes, canals, and structures useful to the people: here also he repairs ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... During the hearing of the case a violent altercation had taken place between them, but when the Court rose they left the building together, walking amicably to their lodgings. Two men who had been in Court and had heard their wrangle were following behind them, when one said to the other: "If you was in trouble, Bill, which o' them two tip-top 'uns would you have to defend you?"—"Well, Jim," was the reply, "I should pitch upon this 'un," pointing to the Q.C. ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... A snarling wrangle instantly began, Sanchez objecting to rubies and demanding more emeralds, and Picquet complaining violently concerning the smallness ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

... see how I will fit you with a wig. There's ne'er a barber in London (and that's a bold word) can palm a rotten caul, or a pennyweight of dead hair, upon me." And, indeed, this zealous adherent did wrangle so long with the merchant, that he was desired twenty times to leave the shop, and see if he could get one cheaper elsewhere. At length I made choice (if a good handsome bob), for which I paid ten shillings, and returned ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... Honour or Riches, are things for which he has no taste. But notwithstanding all this and what else he may defend himself with, as that the Lady is too old or too young, of a suitable Humour, or the quite contrary, and that it is impossible they can ever do other than wrangle from June to January, Every Body tells him all this is Spleen, and he must have a Wife; while all the Members of the Inquisition are unanimous in a certain Woman for him, and they think they all together are better able to judge, than he or any ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... satisfied with our opinions till they are ratified and confirmed by the suffrages of the rest of mankind. We dispute and wrangle for ever; we endeavour to get men to come to us when we ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds

... stealthy movements and his strange appearance passed unnoticed. There was a noisy emigrant party in the cloak-room, taking out luggage deposited the night before; they were absorbed in their own affairs, and in some wrangle with the officials which involved a good deal of lost temper ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... then, after such illustrations, for those who still deny the authenticity of Ossian to declare whether they have ever studied him; and for those who still wrangle about the style of Macpherson's so-called Gaelic to decide whether they will continue such petty warfare among vowels and consonants, and ill-spelt mediaeval legends, when the science, the history, the navigation, the atmospheric phenomena, and the impending ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various

... of the French war, 1754-1760, the utter incompatibility between imperial theories on the one hand and colonial political habits on the other, could no longer be disregarded. In the midst of the struggle, the legislatures continued to wrangle with governors over points of privilege; they were slow to vote supplies; they were {27} dilatory in raising troops; they hung back from a jealous fear that their neighbour colonies might fail to do their share; they were ready to ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith

... ceremonies of their fathers, devoutly frequented the temples of the gods, and sometimes condescending to act a part on the theatre of superstition, they concealed the sentiments of an atheist under the sacerdotal robe. Reasoners of such a temper were scarcely inclined to wrangle about their respective modes of faith or of worship. It was indifferent to them what shape the folly of the multitude might choose to assume, and they approached with the same inward contempt and the same external reverence to the altars of the Lybian, the Olympian ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill

... he could get anywhere near the ticket-office window, and he completely lost what little temper he had when a garrulous woman blocked his way and took fifteen minutes of additional time in an interminable wrangle ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard

... come with me, newly married bride, For, if you hear him, you grow like the rest: Bear children, cook, be mindful of the churn, And wrangle over butter, fowl, and eggs, And sit at last there, old and bitter of tongue, Watching the white stars war ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... clouds of steam. We find at last an empty bench, and surround ourselves with a semicircle of wooden pails, collected from all around the room. Sometimes two women in search of pails lay hold of the same pail at the same moment, and a wrangle ensues, in the course of which each disputant reminds the other of all her failings, nicknames, and undesirable connections, living, dead, and unborn; until an attendant interferes, with more muscle than argument, ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... has to give. Courage never so debased herself as to lodge in his breast or take quarters near him. But cowardice is altogether lodged with him, and she has found a host who will honour her and serve her so faithfully that he is willing to resign his own fair name for hers." Thus they wrangle all night, vying with each other in slander. But often one man maligns another, and yet is much worse himself than the object of his blame and scorn. Thus, every one said what he pleased about him. And when the next day dawned, all the people prepared and came again to the jousting place. The Queen ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... it out, and I was on it before you, and I'm not going any more shares with you and your mates," Walker shouted; and the men on the claims nearest caught the words, and withdrew their attention from the wrangle between Palmer Billy and the jumper of his ground, in favour of the squabble between the four ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... settle their domestic differences on the doorstep, while the neighbours, gathered hastily by the commotion, tiptoe behind each other to watch the fun. In the European congerie France represents this loud-voiced household, and Paris—Paris, the city that soon forgets—is the doorstep whereon they wrangle. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... of this misfortune, I do not feel like speaking, and I know you do not feel like hearing a political wrangle. It is but just to say that the members of all parties, with scarce an exception, Democrats as well as Republicans, share in sympathy with the President and his family, and in detestation of the crime and the criminal, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... down. What's your favourite brand of wine? Let's settle on it now, so as to have no unseemly wrangle when the waiter comes. I'm rather in awe of the waiter. It doesn't seem natural that any mere human man should be so obviously superior to the rest of us mortals as this waiter is. I'm going to give you ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr

... is the very same: the very hand: the very words: what doth he thinke of vs? Mis.Page. Nay I know not: it makes me almost readie to wrangle with mine owne honesty: Ile entertaine my selfe like one that I am not acquainted withall: for sure vnlesse hee know some straine in mee, that I know not my selfe, hee would neuer haue boorded me in ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... flood of Fortune So far exceed all instance, all discourse, That I am ready to distrust mine eyes And wrangle with my reason that Persuades ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... fat soldier attempted to pilfer a horse from a dooryard. He planned to load his knap-sack upon it. He was escaping with his prize when a young girl rushed from the house and grabbed the animal's mane. There followed a wrangle. The young girl, with pink cheeks and shining eyes, stood like ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... earnest entreaties that His Majesty would instantly send every soldier that could be spared, nay, that he would come himself to save his northern kingdom. The factions of the Parliament House, awestruck by the common danger, forgot to wrangle. Courtiers and malecontents with one voice implored the Lord High Commissioner to close the session, and to dismiss them from a place where their deliberations might soon be interrupted by the mountaineers. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of it, all you housekeepers—no gold plate or silverware to send to the vault, no bric-a-brac to pack, no furniture to cover, no bedding to put away, no rugs or furs or clothes to send to cold storage, no servants to wrangle with or discharge, no plumbers to swear over, no janitors to cuss at, no, not even any housecleaning to do before you depart—just move and nothing more. Just dump a little outfit into a canoe and then paddle away from all your tiresome environment, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... and the play was as spirited as before. Rockville was unusually aggressive, and one of the players tackled Phil unfairly, giving his shoulder a severe wrench. A protest was at once made by both Phil and Dave, and amid a general wrangle the Rockville ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer

... The wrangle proceeded monotonously, each party repeating over and over again the phrases of his own argument. I was very glad that Jos did not know me to be a witness of the making of the bet; otherwise I should assuredly have ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... is easier to say what to avoid than what to accept, for there's more of it. Broad is the road of error, and the faults and follies, vices and sins, that wrangle and riot therein, are thicker than crickets on a sandy road in October,—thicker and blacker. You may catch them all day and there'll be just as many left. But the devoted followers of truth you may count on your ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... house of convocation still continued to wrangle with their superiors; and though they joined the upper house in a congratulatory address to the queen on the success of her arms, they resolved to make application to the commons against the union. The queen being apprised of their design, desired the archbishop ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... Notwithstanding the continual wrangle between the governor and the House, in which I, as a member, had so large a share, there still subsisted a civil intercourse between that gentleman and myself, and we never had any personal difference. I have sometimes since thought that his little or no resentment against ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... immorality, as a necessary defense against the loathesomeness of promiscuity, as a fearful warning against prostitution, and our advantage slips from us. The disease continues to spread wholesale disaster and degeneration while we wrangle over issues that were old when history began and are progressing with desperate slowness to a solution probably many centuries distant. Think of syphilis as a medical and a sanitary problem, and its last line of defense crumbles ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes

... London. In yon sanctimonious-looking closet, next to the duchess's bed-chamber, with her psalter and her prayer-book on her desk, which is fixed to her great chair, and that very cane which still hangs there serving as her support when she comes forth from that closet, murmur and wrangle the component parts of that which was never mentioned without fear—the Cabal. The conspirators dare not trust themselves in the gallery: there is tapestry there, and we all know what coverts there ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... flower lifting its face to light and air. The lilies of the mire are not so white as the white herons that fish among them. The ripest spray of goldenrod is not so highly coloured as the burnished gold on the breast of the oriole that rocks on it. The jays are bluer than the calamus bed they wrangle above with throaty chatter. The finches are a finer purple than the ironwort. For every clump of foxfire flaming in the Limberlost, there is a cardinal glowing redder on a bush above it. These may not ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter

... me to the point about this young feller that's going to be hung," said Bob, tapping the newspaper that lay upon the bench. "I don't know what would lie between two young women in a wrangle of that sort; some would get over it quick, but some would never sleep soundly any more not for a minute of their mortal lives. Edie must have been one of that sort. There's people living there now as ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various

... Hagford said sternly. "Don't wrangle any more. Come! March! Walter, lead the way with your sister. ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr

... know not: it makes me almost 75 ready to wrangle with mine own honesty. I'll entertain myself like one that I am not acquainted withal; for, sure, unless he know some strain in me, that I know not myself, he would never have boarded me in ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... thing about a wrangle on cricket is that there is no bitterness in it. When you talk about politicians you are always on the brink of bad temper. When you disagree about the relative merits of W.B. Yeats or Francis Thompson you are afflicted with scorn for the other's lack of perception. But you may quarrel ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... forthright gave orders to mount, and the twain, escorted by their host, rode forth on the traces of the grain till they drew near the house, when the youth heard the jingle and jangle[FN256] of horses' tramp and the wrangle and cangle of men's outcries. Upon this said the Cook to the Warlock, "Here they draw near to seize me, O my lord, what is there now for me to do?" and said the other, "Rise and fill me an ewer with water then mount therewith to the terrace-roof ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... writers. We get no good old-fashioned love-stories from them. It's either a quarrel of discordant natures one a panther, and the other a polar bear—for courtship, until one of them is crippled by a railway accident; or a long wrangle of married life between two unpleasant people, who can neither live comfortably together nor apart. I suppose, by what I see, that sweet wooing, with all its torturing and delightful uncertainty, still goes on in the world; and I have no doubt that the majority of married people live ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... through the trouble and tangle From yesterdays dawning to yesterday's night I sought through the vales where the prisoned winds wrangle, Till, wearied and bleeding, at end of the light I met him, and we wrestled, and great was ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris

... Dungeons & Dragons) is also reported. 2. A curmudgeon attached to an obsolescent computing environment. The combination 'ITS troglodyte' was flung around some during the Usenet and email wringle-wrangle attending the 2.x.x revision of the Jargon File; at least one of the people it was intended to describe ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... "I may not wrangle, especially with a woman," replied Ithiel, who seemed ill at ease; "but if my first words are true, this is true also, that those same rules enjoin upon us hospitality, and above all, that we must not turn away the ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... outer threshold. Mrs. Flanagan had, somehow, got there before him, with a lamp, and he followed her down through the dancing shadows, with blurred eyes. On the lower landing he stopped to hear the jar of some noisy wrangle, thick with oaths, from the bar-room. He listened for a moment, and then turned to the staring stupor ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... place, their value, their significance. But to the poet they seem only the laborious organising of his dreams, the slow and clumsy manufacture of what ought to be instinctive and natural. If the world must grow upon these lines, if men must toil in smoke-stained factories or wrangle in heated Parliaments, then it is well that the framework of life should be made as firm, as compact, as just as it can. But not here does his hope lie; he looks forward to a far different regeneration than can be effected by law and police. He looks forward to a time when ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... cannot wrangle about. Sensible people will agree to a middle course founded upon a few general axioms and propositions about which, right or wrong, they will not think it worth while to wrangle for some time, and ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... miles of growing grain in summer, or ripening corn and wheat in autumn. When it comes in winter the air glitters with incredible brilliancy. The snow of the country dazzles and flames in the eyes; deep blue shadows everywhere stream like stains of ink. Sleigh bells wrangle from early morning till late at night, and every step is quick and alert. In the city, smoke dims its clarity, but ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... a panderer do not wrangle so many times, or gladiators in charge of a trainer do not fight so many times for a prize as these do under their teacher of philosophy. The populace, not self-restrained and serious, but fickle, barbarous, ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton

... strong by the strong; Soft under his breath Singeth sword in the sheath, And shield babbleth oft Unto helm-crest aloft; How soon shall their words rise mid wrath of the battle Into wrangle unheeded of clanging and rattle, And no man shall note then the gold on the sword When the runes have no meaning, the mouth-cry no word, When all mingled together, the war-sea of men Shall toss up the ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... threat, started as if a crossbow bolt had whizzed past his head when least expected. And it was with a trembling voice that he replied: "Nay, good father Glover, thou takest too much credit for thy grey hairs. Consider, good neighbour, thou art too old for a young martialist to wrangle with. And in the matter of my Maudie, I can trust thee, for I know no one who would be less willing than thou to break the ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... he got the blacks out. They must be growin' old by now.... Grand hosses, they was. But Jane had another hoss, a big devil of a sorrel. His name was Wrangle. Did Venters ever tell you about him—an' ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... Guy, and Amy rejoiced; for if her sister had not taken up the defence of the absent, she must, and she felt too strongly to be willing to speak. It seemed too absurd for one feeling himself under such a doom to wrangle about a horse, yet she was somewhat amused by the conviction that if Guy had really wished to annoy ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... he would have thought little of shooting any one who was bold enough to offer to pay him for riding. When in his cap, jacket, boots, and breeches, he would, if he thought occasion required or his interests demanded it, wrangle like a devil. Though its back were turned to him, he could see a horse go on the wrong side of a post; and woe betide the man who came to the scales as a winner an ounce below the weight. Bob, from long practice, knew ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... the few huts that formed early London were fought for over and over again, as wolves wrangle round a carcass. On Cornhill there probably dwelt petty kings who warred with the kings of Ludgate; and in Southwark there lurked or burrowed other chiefs who, perhaps by intrigue or force, struggled for centuries to get a foothold in Thames ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... deaf ear but would answer clear enough in the end, and recall the drumsticks and the equivocal bull, the cat's claws, and the unequivocal married person. And then you would turn over all the little things of old, and wrangle a bit over details here and there; and all the while you would be the very selfsame two that were young and were lost in the wood and trampled down the fern and saw the squirrels overhead ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... be seen; no women at all, except an odd peasant come in to sell her produce; no loud talk, laughter, and singing, as in the Italian towns. Sometimes, under the shade of a tree on the public promenade, a dozen armed peasants will play at cards or watch each other play; they never shout or wrangle; if they get hot over the game, pistol shots ring out, and this always before the utterance of any threat. The Corsican is grave and silent by nature. In the evening, a few persons come out to enjoy the cool air, but the promenaders on the Corso are nearly all of them foreigners; the islanders ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee

... canal boats, and East Indiamen; in shops, counting-rooms, farmyards, guard-rooms, ale-houses; on the exchange, in the tennis-court, on the mall; at banquets, at burials, christenings, or bridals; wherever and whenever human creatures met each other, there was ever to be found the fierce wrangle of Remonstrant and Contra-Remonstrant, the hissing of red-hot theological rhetoric, the pelting of hostile texts. The blacksmith's iron cooled on the anvil, the tinker dropped a kettle half mended, the broker left a bargain unclinched, the Scheveningen fisherman ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... And so the wrangle went on; and at the end of it the company was as near agreeing as they had been at ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... Righteousness is one and indivisible, although it is capable of being viewed from three different points. The paths (indications) of those three that constitute the foundation of Righteousness have each been laid down. Do thou act according to the instructions laid down. Thou shouldst never wrangle about Righteousness and then seek to have those doubts solved into which thou mayst arrive. O chief of the Bharatas, let no doubts like these ever take possession of thy mind! Do thou obey what I say without scruple of any kind. Follow me like a blind man or like one who, without being possessed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... jumpy," said Alfred, and at that instant a wrangle of loud voices, and a general commotion was heard in the outer hall. "What's that?" asked Alfred, endeavouring to disentangle ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo

... its details would serve no good purpose; if it did not originate in, it was no doubt aggravated by, one of those entanglements common to the life of the bagnio, which Charles's Court so faithfully reflected. Some wrangle as to the enjoyment of the facile charms of one of the royal mistresses, or the disputed paternity of some bastard, very probably was the origin of an ignoble quarrel which presently reached the dimensions of an affair of State, occupied the attention of the ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... it would possess the advantage of conveying a suggestion of that proclivity for tearing, so characteristic of the animal designated by the term. On this important question the learned philologists wrangle. For my part, I stick to tarrier, which comes "oncommon handy," as the horse-dealer hinted, when reproved by the Cambridge student for reducing a noble animal nearly to the level of a donkey ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... gentle and yielding saint of Abingdon. A plentiful crop of quarrels, however, soon showed that Edmund had, in one respect, copied only too faithfully the example of his predecessor. He was engaged in a controversy of some acerbity with the Archbishop of York, and he was involved in a long wrangle with the monks of his cathedral, which took him to Rome soon after the legate's arrival. He got little satisfaction there, and found a whole sea of troubles to overwhelm him on his return. At last came the demand ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... I did not regard it in that light, though I might have been willing to call it a retaining fee. However, do not let us wrangle about money any more. We can always settle our accounts when the bill is added up, if ever we reach so far. Now let us ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... out of the window, for in the center of that knot she had seen Buck Badger. She had eagerly searched for him in the procession, and had but found him when that indication of a wrangle came to disturb her. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... reluctance, that he sought to be excused. He took it as a matter of course. The part assigned to Bacon in the prosecution was as important as that of Coke; and he played it more skilfully and effectively. Trials in those days were confused affairs, often passing into a mere wrangle between the judges, lawyers, and lookers-on, and the prisoner at the bar. It was so in this case. Coke is said to have blundered in his way of presenting the evidence, and to have been led away from the point into an altercation ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... society as to what conduct and character should be selected for preservation or caused to cease. In all modern states the power to make acts crimes has been abused, and the motive of punishment has been so lost that we wrangle as to what it is. The ruling coterie uses the power to make things crimes to serve its own interests. Protectionists make it criminal to import goods. Governments do the same to further their fiscal purposes. They also make it criminal to immigrate or emigrate, or to coin money, even ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... George Desmond's time-yellowed pages they repose in the Smithsonian Institute, and after a learned wrangle between savants of all countries—lasting many months—it was agreed that the poor explorer must have lost his mind and that the narrative of the Flying Men was the offspring of a brain crazed ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... gave order for this waste-paper; how do you think I could ever fill it, or with what? I am not always in the humour to wrangle and dispute. For example now, I had rather agree to what you say, than tell you that Dr. Taylor (whose devote you must know I am) says there is a great advantage to be gained in resigning up one's will to the command of another, because the same action which in itself ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry

... not easily brook such a change of social relations; but, unable to cope against Roman power, they came, as usual, to wrangle among themselves. The majority pronounced for another chieftain, named Bogitar, and succeeded in forming a party in Rome in his favor. Clodius, in an assembly of the Roman people, obtained a decree confirmatory of his authority, and he took possession of Pessinuntum, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... After preliminary organization a wrangle at once began as to the form of the trial. We held very strongly that we should continue our usual custom of open meeting; but Morton insisted with equal vehemence that the prisoners should have jury trial. The discussion grew very hot and confused. Pistols and knives were flourished. The chair ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... in a kind of ironic simplicity, and he seemed to me as I looked upon him like a man exalted out of all reason by some great joy. "It is but a gardener's wrangle—how best to ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... do wrangle, what shall we get by it? Trouble and wrong ourselves, make sport to others. If I be convict of an error, I will yield, I will amend. Si quid bonis moribus, si quid veritati dissentaneum, in sacris vel humanis literis a me dictum sit, id nec dictum esto. In ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... of the occupations in which people may indulge on week days are regarded as harmless on Sunday by the obstinately anti-Christian tone of feeling which prevails in this matter among the Anglo-Saxon race. It is not sinful to wrangle in religious controversy; and it is not sinful to slumber over a religious book. The ladies at Ham Farm practiced the pious observance of the evening on this plan. The seniors of the sex wrangled in Sunday controversy; and the juniors of the sex slumbered ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... not without our political parties and disputes; and we sometimes wrangle about very small matters—such as, what amount of labour shall be bestowed on the public roads—the best modes of conducting our schools and colleges—the comparative merits of the candidates for office, or the policy of some proposed change in the laws. ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... action. In the abstract the right course seems quite natural and easy, but in fact it is not so. A man finds another act towards him with unconscious impudence or arrogance, and at once flies into a rage; there is a fierce wrangle, and at the end he finds no purpose served, for nothing was at stake. He has lost his temper for nothing. In his heat he may tell you "he wouldn't let so-and-so do so-and-so," but on the same principle he should hold a street-argument with every fish-wife who might call him a ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... frozen. It was Christmas Eve. Also the War was over, and there was a sense of relief that was almost a new menace. A man felt the violence of the nightmare released now into the general air. Also there had been another wrangle among the men on ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... where the slanting sunbeams cast a red light, he was reminded by every object that met his eye of the harsh and rebellious sensations that he had allowed to reign over him at his last arrival there, which had made him wrangle over the bier of one so loving and beloved, and exaggerate the right till it wore the semblance ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... have their own way; but they are very trusty and honest, poor things. We soon found that out. When we came here first it was in a hired wagon, and Hottentot drivers: so when we came to settle I made ready for a bit of a wrangle. But my maid Sophy, that is nurse now, and a great despiser of heathens, she says, 'Don't you trouble; them nasty ignorant blacks never charges more than their due.' 'I forgive 'em,' says I; 'I wish all white folk was as nice.' However, I did give them a trifle over, for luck: and then ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... (adj.) plejmalbona. Worst (adv.) plejmalbone. Worsted malvenkita. Wort mosto. Worth, to be valori. Worth (value) valoro. Worth (esteem) indo. Worthless (morals) malnobla. Worthless senvalora. Worthy (of) inda (je). Wound vundi. Wrack fuko. Wrangle disputi, malpaci. Wrangle disputado, malpacado. Wrap faldi, kovri. Wrapper kovrilo. Wrath kolerego. Wrathful kolerega. Wreath garlando. Wreathe plekti, girlandi. Wreck (ship) sxippereo. Wreckage derompajxo. Wren regolo. Wrench ektiregi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... court." This high assertion of federal authority was made by Jackson of Georgia in the course of a long legal argument. The debate did not follow sectional lines, and in general it was not unfairly described by Maclay as a lawyer's wrangle. The bill was put into shape by the Senate, and reached the House toward the close of the session when the struggle over the site of the national capital was overshadowing everything else. It was so generally believed that nothing important could be gained by ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... might have found something better to talk about on the road from Caesarea, where they had heard from Jesus of His sufferings, than this miserable wrangle about rank! Singularly enough, each announcement of the Cross seems to have provoked something of the sort. Probably they understood little of His meaning, but hazily thought that the crisis was at hand when He should establish ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... wyll, but yet I must say true 140 And now a lyttle more I wyll say to you Much sorowe and care welth doth brewe He is seldome in rest. when a man is a lyttle hit and welthy And hath in his cheste treasures plentye Then wyl he wrangle, and do shreudly By his power and might. With his neighboures he wyll go to lawe And a wreke his malyce for valew of strawe welth is fykle and out nf awe 150 wylfull in wronge ...
— The Interlude of Wealth and Health • Anonymous

... stick by the Maggie. In his dull way it is probable that he was fascinated by the agile intelligence of Mr. Gibney, the vitriolic tongue of Captain Scraggs, and the elephantine wit and grizzly bear courage of Mr. McGuffey. At any rate, he delighted in hearing them snarl and wrangle. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... the original subject would be left unfinished, and they would argue and shout about the side issue. In a little while another side issue would arise, and then the first side issue would be abandoned also unfinished, and an angry wrangle about the second issue would ensue, the original subject ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... the conditions. But when he was outvoted, Douglas adopted the sensible course of refusing to obstruct the work of the Committee of Thirteen by any instructions. He was inclined to believe the whole project a farce: well, if it was, the sooner it was over, the better; he was not disposed to wrangle and turn the farce into ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... my dear, honest old, HONEST old idiot, there are scores of families here in this parish, within a stone's throw, that squabble, wrangle, all but politely tear each other's eyes out, every day of their earthly lives. It's perfectly natural. Where should we poor old busybodies be else. Peace on earth we bring, and it's ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... (whiche yo{u} might well have donne without anye whatsoeuer dispargement to yo{ur}selfe,) you sholde haue understoode before the impressione, althoughe this whiche I here write ys not nowe uppon selfe will or fonnd conceyte to wrangle for one asses shadowe, or to seke a knott in a rushe, but in frendlye sorte to bringe truthe to lighte, athinge whiche I wolde desire others to use towardes mee in whatsoeuer shall fall oute of my penne. Wherefore I will here ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne

... 'tis confessed That wisdom infinite must form the best, Where all must full or not coherent be, And all that rises, rise in due degree; Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain, There must be, somewhere, such a rank as man: And all the question (wrangle e'er so long) Is only this, if God has ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... yourself to wrangle with me, husband," said Teresa; "I speak as God pleases, and don't deal in out-of-the-way phrases; and I say if you are bent upon having a government, take your son Sancho with you, and teach him from this time on how to hold a government; for sons ought ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... times. Then the prima donna leaped on to the first line, and slipped, and fell on to the second, and that broke and let her through into the third. The other voices came in to pick her up, and got into a grand wrangle, and the bass and the soprano had it for about ten seconds; but the soprano beat (women always do), and the bass rolled down into the cellar, and the soprano went up into the garret, but the latter kept ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... apparent concessions only to keep them from raving. Of what consequence is it whether you do or do not say that the king is the head of the Church? From His heavens above, God looks down and smiles at this petty earthly strife which concerns not Him, but men only. Let scholars and theologians wrangle; we women have nothing to do with it. If we only believe in God, and bear Him to our hearts, the form in which we do it is a matter of indifference. But in this case the question is not about God, but merely about external dogmas. Why should you trouble yourself with these? What have you ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... thing he could do in order to preserve, if not his reason, at any rate his moral equilibrium in the position which he had contrived for himself. To tell him this had been my object in seeking the interview, and the blessed opportunity only came after an hour's hard wrangle—in current metaphor after an hour's artillery preparation for attack. He looked so battered, poor old Anthony, that I felt almost ashamed of the success of ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... breach, rupture, dispute, dissension, bickering, wrangle, broil, squabble, row, rumpus, ruction, spat, tiff, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... I had taken an observation at noon as usual, the skipper of late leaving that operation entirely to me, for he knew Mr Macdougall would be certain to get a sight too, if only in order to have a wrangle with me as to the right position of the ship. Having made out the reckoning with a stop watch, I was busily engaged marking out our place on the chart on top of the cabin sky-light, as it was a fine day, with a pair of ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... transplanted to London.' Piozzi Letters, i. 326. He is pleasantly alluding to the fact that he was a Staffordshire man. In the Dialogue in The Gent. Mag. for 1791, p. 502, Mrs. Knowles says that, the wrangle ended thus:—'Mrs. K. "I hope, Doctor, thou wilt not remain unforgiving; and that you will renew your friendship, and joyfully meet at last in those bright regions where pride and prejudice can never enter." Dr. Johnson. "Meet her! I never desire to meet fools ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... a time, and Ward kept beating his leg with the paper wand in his hand. "Watts," said the general, finally, "I know what it was—it was youth. John Barclay had to go through that period. He had to fight and wrangle and grapple with life as he did. Do you remember that night the Minneola fellows came up with their ox team and their band of killers to take the county records—" and there was more of it—the old story of the town's wild days that need not be recorded, and in the end, in answer ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... law of nations itself. When that result was announced, we expressed our entire disapprobation; and yet trusting to the representations of the government that matters were concluded satisfactorily, we had to decide whether it were wise, if the great result was obtained, to wrangle upon points however important, such as those to which ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... how he dreams day and night of the brooks of clear water that in cool dewy channels gush down the green Casentine hills. Sinon, the false Greek of Troy, mocks at him. He smites him in the face, and they wrangle. We are fascinated by their shame, and loiter, till Virgil chides us and leads us away to that city turreted by giants where great Nimrod blows his horn. Terrible things are in store for us, and we go to ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... when Thomas le Chamberleyn brought a writ before the Common Bench against a certain W., who, he complained, had taken his horse in the highway in the town of Bernewell. The writ ran—"took in the highway and still keeps impounded." There was the usual wrangle between counsel, and an attempt was made to oust or invalidate the writ by asserting that six years and a half before it (the writ) was purchased the animal had been surrendered. After this preliminary fencing counsel for the defence produced his real case, which was that by the ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... To do anything for Father was a joy. Gwen often wished she could play the organ like Winnie, but she was not clever at music. Beatrice had made a great effort to teach her the piano, with poor success, for she was not a docile or attentive pupil, and the lessons generally involved a wrangle between the two sisters, Beatrice losing her patience, and Gwen arguing hotly. Finally Father had put a stop to the lessons altogether, on the ground that it was sheer waste of time, and Gwen was better employed at something else. ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... encroachment of British miners alarmed the weaker country. For nearly twenty years Venezuela had vainly appealed to the United States, asking that the dispute be arbitrated. The United States had taken a mild interest in the wrangle, but no one before Cleveland had felt vitally concerned. He undertook, in the summer of 1895, to persuade Great Britain to accept an arbitration, and pressed Lord Salisbury in a series of notes drafted by ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... German side, and no information given him which might lead him to understand that Germany desired to avoid a casus belli at all costs, for fear of giving Mr. Wilson an opportunity to gain a cheap triumph over Germany in a verbal wrangle. ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... that in this matter Saduko has a thinking head and listens to me. Also I agree that it is likely I shall learn many more ill things through and of you one day, daughter of Umbezi. And now, as it is not good that we should wrangle before this white lord, again I say to you that this is my hut, in which I wish to speak ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... on his arm, while the red-haired girl chased on ahead with an empty milk can, running to make up for lost time and not be late with the motormen's supper? He must wait and help Judith carry the basket. She had no time to wrangle with him about whether he should or should not wait. Supper was cooked but it must be packed properly and the finishing touches put to it. Mrs. Buck was wandering around the kitchen making futile attempts to help. Jeff, who was sitting outside on a bench under the ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... under the hot sun of the tropics. The sky is always blue; the sun is always hot. It is girdled by the sea. It is always silent; for the Indian children do not laugh or shout, and the Indian women are too much awed by the presence of the dead to wrangle; always silent, save for the crying of the sea-birds on the rock. There are no letters, no newspapers, no friends, no duties—none save when a ship puts in; and then, for the doctor, farewell rest, farewell sleep, until the bill of health is ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various



Words linked to "Wrangle" :   herd, bicker, fracas, wrangling, fuss, brawl, altercation, bargaining, scrap, wrangler, argufy, words, row, dispute, dustup, bickering



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com