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Agape   /əgˈeɪp/   Listen
Agape

noun
(pl. agapae)
1.
(Christian theology) the love of God or Christ for mankind.
2.
Selfless love of one person for another without sexual implications (especially love that is spiritual in nature).  Synonym: agape love.
3.
A religious meal shared as a sign of love and fellowship.  Synonym: love feast.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Agape" Quotes from Famous Books



... These included the following Web sites: the Knights of Columbus Council 4828, a Catholic men's group associated with St. Patrick's Church in Fallon, Nevada, http://msnhomepages.talkcity.com/SpiritSt/kofc4828, which was blocked by Cyber Patrol in the "Adult/Sexually Explicit" category; the Agape Church of Searcy, Arkansas, http://www.agapechurch.com, which was blocked by Websense as "Adult Content"; the home page of the Lesbian and Gay Havurah of the Long Beach, California Jewish Community Center, http://www.compupix.com/gay/havurah.htm, which was blocked by N2H2 as "Adults ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

... New Testament to Timothy, who may have been "the husband of one wife." See 1 Tim. iv, 12, and v. 2. It is also applied by Polycarp, in his Epistle, to married women. "Let us teach your (or our) wives to walk in the faith that is given to them, both in love and purity" ([Greek: agape kai hagneia]).—Epistle to the Philippians, Sec. 4. See also "The Shepherd of Hermas," book ii. command. ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... so nice to do As pay a visit to the zoo, And see beasts that, at different times, Were brought from strange and distant climes. I love to watch the tapirs tape; I stand intent, with mouth agape. Then I observe the vipers vipe; They're a most interesting type. I love to see the beavers beave; Indeed, you scarcely would believe That they can beave so cleverly, Almost as well as you or me. And then ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells

... brickwork, fallen beams, broken rafters and twisted ironwork, across a desolate square shut in by the ruin of the great Cloth Hall and other once stately buildings, and so to a grim, battle-scarred edifice, its roof half blown away, its walls cracked and agape with ugly holes, its doorway reinforced by many sandbags cunningly disposed, through which we passed into the dingy office of the ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol

... they had used as a guide, or who had approached them from curiosity, listened with mouth agape to the dissertations on foss and vellum, ports dextra, sinistra, and decumana, which Sir John Clerk delivered ex cathedra, and his learned visitor listened with the deference to the dignity of a connoisseur on his own ground. But when the cicerone proceeded ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... indentations of a recent flock of sheep, and at last in the throat of the town cobbles and the stony streets branching east, west, north, and south, at a stone cross under the shadow of the cathedral the tracks vanished. "O Cricky!" said Mr. Hoopdriver, dismounting in dismay and standing agape. "Dropped anything?" said an inhabitant at the kerb. "Yes," said Mr. Hoopdriver, "I've lost the spoor," and walked upon his way, leaving the inhabitant marvelling what part of a bicycle a spoor might be. Mr. Hoopdriver, abandoning tracking, ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... war-path led into the shades of night, there the woods were alive with ghosts. We shall, therefore, make our dip into the medley just at that point where the narrator, having brought his listeners all agape to the hazardous edge of ambush and battle subsides into the possible; the story now rising of itself into the wonderful, and having no great need of exaggeration or ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... invincible spirit of Steve. It was there in the bottom of the light vessels, in the drawn faces and attenuated bodies of the paddler crew of Shaunekuks. It was in the display of Steve's side-arms strapped to a strut of the canoe ready to his hand, with holsters agape, and his loaded guns protruding threateningly. It was in a similar display in the second boat, which the well-nigh demented Julyman had commanded. Oh, yes. No words were needed to tell the story. It was there for all ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... herd. When Nero's wife put on her auburn wig, And at the Coliseum showed her head, The hair of every dame in Rome turned red; When Nero fiddled all Rome danced a jig. Novelty sets the gabbling geese agape, And fickle fashion follows like an ape. Aye, brass is plenty; gold is scarce and dear; Crystals abound, but diamonds still are rare. Is this the golden age, or the age of gold? Lo by the page or column ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... equal aboard," said Lund slowly, "leavin' out Mr. Rainey, Tamada an' Sandy. You an' me, an' Carlsen an' Harris there"—he nodded toward one of the seaman delegates who listened with his slack mouth agape, scratching himself under the ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... His nine years seemed to have been crowded full of the wildest of wild adventures and happenings, as well by land as by sea, and, given an appreciative audience, he would reel off his yarns by the hour, in a reckless, devil-may-care fashion that set agape even old sea dogs who had sailed the western ocean since boyhood. Then he seemed always to have plenty of money, and he loved to spend it at the tavern tap-room, with a lavishness that was at once the ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... invent such transformations—only the transformations are so infinitely slow, and attended with such struggle and suffering. Strike out the element of time and we have before us a spectacle more novel and startling than any hocus-pocus or legerdemain that ever set the crowd agape. ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... be able to see the prince from our seats!" said Isabel, whose eyes were more widely open than usual, and her mouth half agape with excitement. "I'm always stuck in some corner where I can't see them, when ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... Eucharist be regarded as lawful which is celebrated by the bishop, or one commissioned by him. Wherever the bishop makes his appearance, there let the people be assembled, as wherever Christ Jesus is, there is the Catholic church. It is not lawful to baptize or celebrate the Agape without the bishop or his authority. What he approves of is acceptable to God. He who does any thing without the bishop's knowledge, serves the devil." The saint most affectionately thanks them for the kindness they had shown him and ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... his frog-like eyes standing out from his sun-reddened face, stared agape. "Well, by cripes!" He hesitated, looking about him; but whether his search was for more pie or for moral support he did not say. Truth to tell, there was plenty of both. He reached for another pie and another ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... at his buttons with the other, Watson marched into the customs house, while the populace waited agape; but he returned very soon to report that the building was untenanted. Captain Montgomery frowned. He had counted on the pomp and punctilio of a formal surrender—a spectacular bit of history that would fashion gallant words for a report. "Haul down the flag of Mexico," he said to Lieutenant ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... "wonderfully similar" to her "in powers and capacity," was "infinitely superior to her in faith and development," and she saw in him "'Agape'—so rare to find—of which she had read and admired the meaning in her Greek Testament; having, from her great facility in learning languages, read the Scriptures in their original tongues." Of course! Greek and Hebrew are mere play to a heroine; Sanscrit is no more ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... They had already prayed to God for food, but it did not come as promptly as their necessities seemed to demand. They searched for Thorhall for three half-days, and found him on a projecting crag. He was lying there, and looking up at the sky, with mouth and nostrils agape, and mumbling something. They asked him why he had gone thither; he replied, that this did not concern anyone. They asked him then to go home with them, and he did so. Soon after this a whale appeared ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... the silence of the room that every shattered nerve in our hero's frame tingled and thrilled in answer to it. He stood petrified, scarcely so much as daring to breathe; and then, observing that his mouth was agape, he moistened his dry and parching lips, and drew his jaws together with ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle

... Doodles! Do watch them!" he cried for sympathy in his delight. "Did ever you see eyes so bright? Mouths so wide agape? and happiness so intense! Ah! if those to whom they belong could see them now, all hardness would vanish in ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... rejoicing we stood before the open doors of the one blessed by the Lord's 'hungerless' touch. Constantly agape were the villagers, young and old, bare and dressed, women aloof somewhat but inquisitive too, men and boys unabashedly at our heels as they gazed ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... Tavern Door agape, Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and He bid me taste of it; ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... ended up splendidly with rockets and fire-balloons and drunken Indians vociferous on their way to the lock-up. Such a day for the hotels, with teams hitched three abreast in front of their aromatic barrooms; such a day for the circus, with half the farmers of Fox County agape before the posters—with all their chic and shock they cannot produce such posters nowadays, nor are there any vacant lots to form attractive backgrounds—such a day for Mother Beggarlegs! The hotels, and the shops and stalls for eating and drinking, were the only places in which business was ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... you?" cried one agape Shuddering in the gloaming light; "I know not," said the second shape, "I only ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... fight bear.' And in behalf of the players, I must needs say that they are witty knaves, whose rants and jests keep the minds of the commons from busying themselves with state affairs, and listening to traitorous speeches, idle rumours, and disloyal insinuations. When men are agape to see how Marlow, Shakespeare, and other play artificers work out their fanciful plots, as they call them, the mind of the spectators is withdrawn from the conduct of ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... was thunderstruck, Sancho astounded, the cousin staggered, the page astonished, the man from the braying town agape, the landlord in perplexity, and, in short, everyone amazed at the words of the puppet-showman, who went on to say, "And thou, worthy Sancho Panza, the best squire and squire to the best knight in ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... a long stretching hand-gallop, giving the gaunt Zulu a lift at every stride. It was a wonderful thing to see old Umslopogaas run mile after mile, his lips slightly parted and his nostrils agape like the horse's. Every five miles or so we stopped for a few minutes to let him get his breath, ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... cried one, agape, Shuddering in the gloaming light. 'I know not,' said the second Shape, 'I only ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... she spoke, and the country people followed her, all agape. In the hall they paused to wonder at the cocoanut matting; but when they stood on the soft pile carpet, so grateful to their bare feet, in the sitting-room, and looked round, they lowered their voices respectfully, and ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... agape with astonishment. "Methought there was more to 't than appeared," and he went ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... with his own complete Perfections; in himself was all his state, More solemn than the tedious pomp that waits On princes, when their rich retinue long Of horses led, and grooms besmeared with gold, Dazzles the croud, and sets them all agape. Nearer his presence Adam, though not awed, Yet with submiss approach and reverence meek, As to a superiour nature bowing low, Thus said. Native of Heaven, for other place None can than Heaven such glorious shape contain; Since, by descending from the thrones above, Those happy places thou ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... when talk is tall, You'll set the gun-room wide agape, Describing how with just a small Pea-rifle, going after ape You met a Lion unaware, And felled him flying ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... hall he encountered Israel, standing all agape before a Highland target of steel, with a claymore and foil ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... success, of riches or poverty. And at this point, the labour of the rancher ended. Here, at the lip of the chute, he parted company with his grain, and from here the wheat streamed forth to feed the world. The yawning mouths of the sacks might well stand for the unnumbered mouths of the People, all agape for food; and here, into these sacks, at first so lean, so flaccid, attenuated like starved stomachs, rushed the living stream of food, insistent, interminable, filling the empty, fattening the shrivelled, making it sleek ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... filled the room with a thick, dull echo, and there was Betty behind her desk looking up at him agape; and beside her stood Blondy Hansen, big, good looking, and equally startled. Fear made the glance of Vic Gregg swerve—to where little Tommy Aiken scribbled an arithmetic problem on the blackboard—afterschool work for whispering in class, or some equally heinous crime. The tingling voices of the ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... friar of Senlac spoke. His words the flood gates burst And tears like rain On land whose fissures stand agape with thirst, Now filled her soul with joy intense as pain Before. At length her whispered ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer

... They failed to lay hold on it, however, and away we dashed by them like a whirlwind; whilst the disappointed men gesticulating fiercely, with their red "fell o' hair" blowing to the four corners of the earth, and their wild eyes and ogre mouths agape, yelled forth a volley of strange sounds, soon drowned by the louder roar of these summer waves. This was happily the only danger we incurred from the natives; we saw no more of them,[2] and right glad ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... known to Mr. Belknap, I presume—this shameful business. There is no use of secrecy, where all the world is already agape. My sister, you tell me, has eloped with a low brute. I am numbed with the horror of it. But I must hear it all; every word, every particular. Who brought ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... asked a stander-by, a butcher, who, with apron on and sleeves to elbow, had hastily left his stall at one of the afternoon and still stood with mouth agape and fingers widespread waiting for the play. Before, however, his sooty companion could answer, they were ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... in a sort of dressing jacket of silk and lace, fine enough for any lady; and the bed was draped in silk from the Indies, worked in a fashion that set Tom agape. A few volumes of poetry, half a dozen letters, scented and delicately twisted, and a silver salver bearing an empty cup stood beside him. His servant removed this latter, and at a sign from his master withdrew; ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... of an out-going train. Would I had been on it! From time to time we heard faint music. At length there was a noise outside the door, and a moment later Hamilton and two others came in. When he saw me, he stopped, his eyes bulging and his mouth agape. ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath

... may fight or flee— With women and with weanlings. Speech and song Lack utterance now for loathing. Scarce we hear Foul tongues, that blacken God's dishonoured name With prayers turned curses and with praise found shame, Defy the truth whose witness now draws near To scourge these dogs, agape with jaws afoam, Down out of life. Strike, England, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... has preached the gospel of work, and as potently as Carlyle ever preached. For he has preached it not only to those in the high places, but to the common men, to the great sweating thong of common men who hear and understand yet stand agape at Carlyle's turgid utterance. Do the thing to your hand, and do it with all your might. Never mind what the thing is; so long as it is something. Do it. Do it and remember Tomlinson, sexless and soulless Tomlinson, who was denied at ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... enemy: as when a hunter courses with a fleet barking hound some stag caught in a river-loop or girt by the crimson-feathered toils, and he, in terror of the snares and the high river-bank, [753-786]darts back and forward in a thousand ways; but the keen Umbrian clings agape, and just catches at him, and as though he caught him snaps his jaws while the baffled teeth close on vacancy. Then indeed a cry goes up, and banks and pools answer round about, and all the sky echoes the din. He, even as he flies, chides ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... representations, all reproduced from the same pattern, of which I give an example. A family consisting of father, mother, and children, are sitting around a table, upon which the [Greek: ichthus] or fish is served; the banquet is presided over by two mystic figures, Irene or Peace on the left, Agape or Love on the right. The head of the family addresses Peace with these words: "Irene, da calda!" and Love, "Agape, misce mi!" The last words are easily understood: "Give me to drink," the verb mescere ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... Mouths agape, eyes staring, they stood and marveled. The strange presence, they discovered at once, was neither a human being nor an apparition. It was ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... already touched the ground, and perhaps its whole body would soon have been elongated upon the earth but for the shout of Saloo. At this it suddenly jerked up its head, but without taking in any of its coils above; and with jaws agape and tongue protruding, it commenced oscillating around as if trying its range, and ready to pounce upon any creature that came within the radius of that wide circle of which its forked tongue ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... but paused with mouth agape, eyes widening, his expression horror-stricken. For, just then, the bull-terrier snorted loudly, and unclosed its red eyes. The clenched jaws, too, relaxed. Thus released, the broad strip of jeans fluttered to ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... with him. And many hours were spent in endeavours to control such an embarrassing tendency. This extraordinary velocity, acquired in the Paris Conservatory, and from his friend and teacher, Carl Heymann, of Frankfort, invariably set his listeners agape, and was always one of the chief sensations ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman

... gasped Ramsey. "Oh, that can't be all!" She sprang up a stair, dragging the old woman after, and on the hurricane-deck, near a paddle-box, stood for a moment in the wide glory of water, land, and early sky, agape again at the squalid object. Then, as the full humor of the thing struck her—but her behavior may as well go undescribed. Yet it could not have been so very bad, for the pilot high above at the wheel, Watson's "partner," glancing down from his side window, enjoyed ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... was riven by the most appallingly vivid flash of lightning that I had ever seen, accompanied—not followed—by a crash of thunder that temporarily deafened all hands of us and caused the ship to quiver and tremble from stem to stern. Then, while we were all standing agape, our ears deafened by the thunder and our eyes blinded by the glare of the lightning, a fierce gust of hot wind swept over us, filling our two staysails with a report like that of a cannon and laying the ship over to her sheer-strake. Tasker, ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... thing when he tied that lion to the swinging branch. It was almost worse than having him entirely free. He had a circle almost twenty feet in diameter in which he could run and leap at will. It seemed he was in the air all the time. First at Emett, than at me he sprang, mouth agape, eyes wild, claws spread. We whipped him with our nooses, but not one would hold. He always tore it off before we could draw it tight. I secured a precarious hold on one hind paw ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... much humility to the lurid descriptions of a bearded sergeant. His lean features wore an expression of awe and admiration. He was like a listener in a country store to wondrous tales told among the sugar barrels. He eyed the story-teller with unspeakable wonder. His mouth was agape in yokel fashion. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... of ours there is no more delicate or more important branch of the art of material success than learning to play one's own tune on the trumpets of fame. To those who watch careers intelligently and critically, and not merely with mouth agape and ears awag for whatever sounds the winds of credulity bear, there is keen interest in noting how differently this high art is practiced by the fame-seekers—how well some modest heroes disguise themselves before essaying the trumpet, how timidly some play, how brazenly others. It is an ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... when about me the wild tumult ceases, And gone is the master, and I sit apart, And dawn in my brain is beginning to glimmer, The wound comes agape at the core of my heart; And tears, bitter tears flow; ay, tears that are scalding; They moisten my dinner—my dry crust of bread; They choke me,—I cannot eat;—no, no, I cannot! Oh, horrible toil I born of Need and ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld

... repeated. The charm was less in his words than in his personality; for Momus-philosophy lay deep in every look and gesture of the man. The place lent itself to irony: parties of Americans and English parsons, the former agape for any rubbishy old things, the latter learned in the lore of obsolete Church-furniture, had thronged Torcello; and now they were all gone, and the sun had set behind the Alps, while an irreverent stranger drank his wine in Attila's chair, and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... I did myself one day on seeing a kite; but at the moment I was on my knees, and leaning backwards(1) with mouth agape, I bolted an obolus and was forced to carry my bag ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes

... a full heart that to this latter class do I belong. After one gelid moment, spent with eyes and mouth agape, my hands fallen limp beside me and my hair bristling with affright, I became myself again and never calmer than in that dread moment. I went to work with superhuman swiftness. My cheeks may have been livid, my ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... had given Tom an early breakfast at half-past four, and the youngster, agape and dim-eyed at first, speedily brightened up, for he had a willing listener, in the candle-light and poured a tale of moving incidents into Thomasin's proud but ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... unbelieving. It was unreal, that sight—unreal like the slow, grinding movement of the avalanche under him. Wildfire's head seemed a demon head of hate. It reached out, mouth agape, to bite, to rend. That horrible scream could not be ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... muffler it was Dicky the Fool's open mouth and staring eyes that showed Peter how important it was. The Fool had risen from his chair and was standing leaning forward, his back black against the blazing fire, his silly mouth agape and great terror in his eyes. Being odd in his mind, he felt perhaps something in the air that the others did not feel, and Peter seemed to catch fright from his ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... his bulk was so great that even six large wings could hardly support it. His body was covered all over with immense blue scales and tongues of poison flame, his twisted tail had fifty coils and another half coil beyond that, while his claws were each as big as a windmill. His jaws were agape, and inside could be seen three rows of teeth as long as an ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault

... open left hand close to Casey's jaw, and drove his right fist into his palm with a thudding smack. Casey went sprawling to the floor, and lay there loosely, with mouth agape, in perfect simulation of a man who has been ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... to explain, led him to will one thing and do another. In spite of an active mind, which showed itself in unexpected ways, the senses had but to assert themselves, and the darkened brain seemed to exist no longer. He might have astonished wise men; he was capable of setting fools agape. His desires, like a sudden squall of bad weather, overclouded all the clear and lucid spaces of his brain in a moment; and then, after the dissipations which he could not resist, he sank, utterly exhausted in body, heart, and ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... eyes staring, mouth agape, the engineer stayed there for a long minute unable to credit his own senses. For now he, he, the only white man living in the twenty-eighth century, was witnessing the strangest sight that ever a civilized being had looked upon in the ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... claimed the promised forbearance of his lordship to any faults. My father followed her example, and gave his thanks. Such entertainment as the humble house afforded was now produced. After partaking his lordship departed in state. The neighbours had been agape at the great lord's train stationed at the gate. For them and for the curious and discreet questioning, the congratulations at such promotion in the world, this Shimo cared little. His lordship's will had prevailed. Henceforth Shimo would live ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... street to the veranda of the hotel, as he passed through the gate of the corral. The men were standing in a long and awe-stricken line, their eyes wide, their mouths agape. Whoever Ronicky Doone might be, he was certainly a man who had won the respect of this town. The men on the veranda looked at Bill Gregg as though he were already a ghost. He waved his hand defiantly ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand

... well as the necessity of this arrangement is very plain. Of course, while dashing through the sea in this fashion, with his mouth agape, the whale must keep his throat closed, else the water would rush down it and choke him. Shutting his throat then, as he does, the water is obliged to flow out of his mouth as fast as it flows in; ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne

... is pure reason and intelligence, that now in Bourdaloue goes about the business of impressing the thought of the dreadfulness of an eternity of woe. The effect produced is not that of the lightning-flash suddenly revealing the jaws agape of an unfathomable abyss directly before you. It is rather that of steady, intolerable pressure gradually applied to crush, to annihilate, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... an occasional striving after strange and laughable attitudes, as when a stricken bull tumbles upon his head, with his tail tossed straight in the air [PLATE LXV., Fig. 31], or when a lion receives his death-wound with arms outspread, and mouth wildly agape. [PLATE LXVI., Fig. 2.] ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... Roman numerals had been used instead of—" but saw he was paying no attention to me, so I headed for the Main Room to get another card. I had no sooner reached the entrance when I was confronted by the little bearded man again. His mouth was agape with distress, his loud-checked bowtie askew. He waved the book in my face. "Didn't you find anything in ...
— "To Invade New York...." • Irwin Lewis

... broken archway by Evans's Battery into the grounds of the Residency. He walked with Ahmed Ismail at his elbow on the green lawns where the golden-crested hoopoes flashed in the sunlight and the ruined buildings stood agape to the air. They looked peaceful enough, as they strolled from one battery to another, but all the while Ahmed Ismail preached his sermon into Shere Ali's ears. There Lawrence had died; here at the top of the narrow lane had stood Johannes's house whence ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... the other three stared at Rip agape. The audacity and danger of what he suggested was a little stunning. Since men had taken regularly to space no ship had made a direct landing on their home planet—all had passed through the quarantine on Luna. It was not only risky—it was so unheard of that for some minutes ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... a pig, wilt never have done irking me? See, I scratch thee off me!" Maso drove home his gibe with a dramatic performance. The trattoria was agape. Every table held its three craning necks and ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... the most hideous fights that is told of in the history of the world. Again and again the Saracens attacked in thousands, and again and again they were driven back by the desperate valour of the Franks, who fought on, their jaws agape with thirst. A blackbearded man stumbled up to the brethren, his tongue protruding from his lips, and they knew him for the Master ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... homes and cut into squares by barbed-wire fences. The weather had warmed, so that the fashionables' week-end exit to the cool Blue Mountains had begun; and the youngsters near the railway line sometimes left their play and stood agape in the soft twilight to watch the governor's car, painted in a strikingly different colour to all the others and emblazoned with the British ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... mean anything to a hard-headed man like me? Everything came out of a fire mist. How do you know it was a mind made that fire mist? Why couldn't it have been a—a—Christ, what could it have been?" Douglas paused with lips agape with horror as he gazed on the evil of ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... the lad and heavy as it was, she carried it to the table and placed it right in the very center of it. She rearranged the sprigs of burrage, made a fresh disposition of the baskets of fruit, whilst both the men watched her open-mouthed, agape at ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... every word flashed a light on his moral processes, she had been less startled by what he had done than by the way in which his conscience had already become a passive surface for the channelling of consequences. He was like a child who had put a match to the curtains, and stands agape at the blaze. It was horribly naughty to put the match—but beyond that the child's responsibility did not extend. In this business of Arthur's, where all had been wrong from the beginning—where self-defence might well find a plea for its casuistries in the absence of a definite right to be measured ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton

... dissolved into a powdered cloud and the apparition hurtled past him, down upon his head crashed a gigantic water jar filled with earth. He who had sympathized with pagan ablutions the night before stood now with mouth agape. Some heathen god was having a hand in ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... below came one running, eyes wild, mouth agape, and I recognised the man Ford who had been my chief ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... can pray the prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses," out of a full heart. Forgiveness is the only cure of wrong. And hand in hand with Sense-of-injury walks ever the weak sister-demon Self-pity, so dear, so sweet to many—both of them the children of Philautos, not of Agape. But there was no hate, no revenge, in Godfrey, and, I repeat, his weakness he kept concealed. It must have been in his eyes, but eyes are hard to read. For the rest, his was a strong poetic nature—a nature which half unconsciously turned ever toward the ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... thrashings they gave him, and saying, "They can't go on for ever," foreseeing their ultimate downfall, looking out for it out of the corner of his eye, and silently laughing at the thought of it, with his great mouth agape. One fine day it turned out that Gargantua and Friar John were drowned while they were away on a crusade. Patience honestly regretted their loss, merrily took heart of grace, saved Panurge, who was ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... one blunt weapon, often enough stands agape at his own powerlessness before the invulnerable woman of his ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain

... whereupon the boy raised his face and looked up. Hans loosened his hold upon the chimney; crash! he fell, lighting upon his feet in the midst of the burning fagots. The scullion boy tumbled backward upon the floor, where he lay upon the broad of his back with a face as white as dough and eyes and mouth agape, staring speechlessly at the frightful inky-black figure standing in the midst of the flames and smoke. Then his scattered wits came back to him. "It is the evil one," he roared. And thereupon, turning upon ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle

... and the promise of volcanic action back in them; the awful confidence that shone in them; the threat compelling Hamlin against his will, deadening his muscles, jumbling his thoughts—brought chaos into the man's brain, and he stood, his mouth agape with wonder over the thing that was happening to him, as Lawler walked steadily to him. He made no resistance as Lawler deliberately wrenched the pistol from his hand and as deliberately walked to a side wall and placed it upon ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... and peopled with a throng as fantastic: a bawling, laughing, jostling, sweating mob, parti-coloured, parti-speeched, crackling and sputtering under the hot sun like a dish of fritters over a kitchen fire. Tony, agape, shouldered his way through the press, aware at once that, spite of the tumult, the shrillness, the gesticulation, there was no undercurrent of clownishness, no tendency to horse-play, as in such crowds on market-day ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... his face increased. He clenched his hands. "I marvel myself that I did not," he answered passionately—and went out, slamming the door after him, and leaving her ladyship agape and angry. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... stared agape, his knife and fork laid by; for my uncle, become now excited and most indiscreet, was in a manner the most perplexing—and in some mysterious indication—pointing, thumb down, towards the oil-cloth that floored the room, or to the rocks beneath, which the wind ran over, the house ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... gradients of lofty rounded chestnut trees. And between the verdant borders of the pleasure walks, the avenue of the Champs Elysees sloped upward as far as the eye could reach, topped by the colossal Arc de Triomphe, agape in front of the infinite. A double current, a twofold stream rolled along—horses showing like living eddies, vehicles like retreating waves, which the reflections of a panel or the sudden sparkle of the glass of a carriage lamp ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... of society, Diana was also to appear at a single big reception—"Baroni won't look at anything less than a ducal house with Royalty present," as Jerry banteringly asserted—and then, while the world was still agape with interest and excitement, the singer was to be whisked away to Crailing for three months' holiday, and to accept no more engagements until the winter. By that time, Baroni anticipated, people would be feverishly impatient for her reappearance, and the winter ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... they, seven are they, In the ocean deep seven are they, Battening in heaven seven are they, Bred in the depths of ocean.... Of these seven the first is the south wind, The second a dragon with mouth agape....[44] ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... probably Haydn, certainly Mozart; as likely as not, many a known and unknown musician now living; but the poet is not known by knowledge alone—not by gnosis only—but also, and in greater part, by the agape which makes him wish to steal men's hearts, and prompts him so to apply his knowledge that he shall succeed. There has been no one to touch Handel as an observer of all that was observable, a lover of all that was loveable, a hater of all that was hateable, and, therefore, as a poet. Shakespeare ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... their conical hats and dark cloaks, the chill November sky, the gray ripples of Narragansett Bay, the background of forest trees, of which only the oaks and walnuts still retained the red and yellow remnants of their autumn splendor; the quaint little ship at anchor, with its bearded crew agape along the rail; and Baxter the center of all eyes, holding up the charter with a sort of holy enthusiasm! Such a scene could be but once; and time has brought about his revenges. With what demeanor would the ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... to be sure," said Jack, keeping his mouth agape, and gazing at Mr Paget. "I should have thought that sort of work might be left to ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... touched a bite; And never raised her eyes all night To mine again; but on the coals, As I sat staring, she had stared— The black curls, shining round her head From under the red kerchief, tied So nattily beneath her chin— And she had stolen off to bed Quite early, looking dazed and scared. Then, all agape and sleepy-eyed, Ere long the others had turned in: And I was rid of that fat man, Who slouched ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... used to think me a slow dull reader for not getting on with my lesson, but I used to sit and picture to myself the red hen, with its wings beating helplessly, screeching in terrified protest, or perhaps, if he had got it by the neck, with beak wide agape and silent, and eyes staring, as it left the farmyard for ever. I have seen blood-spillings and down-crushings and abject defeat here and there in my time, but the red hen has remained in my mind ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... gushing Glug maids, well aware of their charms, And stern, massive matrons with babes in their arms. There were querulous dames who complained of the "squash," The pushing and squeezing; for, briefly, all Gosh, With its aunt and its wife, stood agape in the ranks— Excepting Sir Stodge ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis

... stood staring after his retreating figure with eyes open and mouth agape, still holding the ball of sheepskin balanced in his hand. Gascoyne burst into a helpless laugh at his blank, stupefied face, but the next moment he laid his hand on his ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... eyes round, hands lifted, her pretty mouth agape, but came on again almost at once, eagerness brushing all other emotions out of her face. "Wherever in the world have you been? What in the name of goodness is the matter with your face?" She turned Morgan a little to let the light fall on ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... audience. Meanwhile, the youngster stands patiently waiting below, evidently with a fore-knowledge of what is to come. Then, after a few seconds of the quacking and braying, the mother bird suddenly ducks her head, with the mandibles of her beak wide agape, between which the fledgling thrusts its head, almost out of sight, and so keeps it for more than a minute. Finally, withdrawing it, up again goes the head of the mother, with neck craned out, and oscillating from side to side in a second spell of speech-making. ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... hath glided and leapt Over sea-grass and sea-rock, alighting as one from a citadel crept That his foemen beleaguer, descending by darkness and stealth, at the last Peers under, and all is as hollow to hellward, agape and aghast. But afloat and afar in the darkness a tremulous colour subsides [Ant. 8. From the crimson high crest of the purple-peaked roof to the soft-coloured sides That brighten as ever they widen till downward the level is won Of the soundless and colourless water that knows ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... is simply an invitation to quackery. The man of genuine ideas is hedged in by taboos; the quack finds an audience already agape. The reply to the invitation, in the domain of applied ethics, is the revived and reinforced Sklavenmoral that besets all of us of English speech—the huggermugger morality of timorous, whining, unintelligent and unimaginative men—envy turned into ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... and merry shout I hear, Ringing and joyous, fresh and clear, Where a troop of rosy boys at play Awaken the echoes far away. They have moulded the snow with hand and spade, And a strange, misshapen image made: A Caliban in fiendish guise, With mouth agape and staring eyes, And monstrous limbs, that might uphold The weight that Atlas bore, of old; Like shapes that our troubled dreams distress, Ghost-like and grim in their ugliness; A huge and hideous human form, Born of the howling wind and storm: And yet those boyish sculptors ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... not allayed. One victim was not enough; the people waited agape for new disclosures. Suddenly two hysteric girls in another family fell into fits daily, and the cry of witchcraft resounded from one end of the colony to the other. The feeling of suffocation in the throat, so ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... as the sand which is upon the sea-shore for multitude? It mattered not while life was so picturesque and varied, and manners were so full of amenity. Your inn might be, and probably was, ill-appointed, untidy, the floors of brick, the doors agape, the windows banging—a contrast in every way to the palatial hotel in New York or Washington. But then how cheerful and amusing were mine host and hostess, and how smilingly determined all concerned to make things pleasant. ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... I stood something agape and framing a further speech, another guest pushed by me and clasped Messer Folco's hand and addressed him, saying, "So you have started a-building your new hospital. Will you never have done ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... another creature, and of all the horrid horde it was this they most feared—Sheeta, the panther, with gleaming jaws agape and fiery eyes blazing at them in the mightiness of his hate and of ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... door would open again. In her mind it had been walled up ever since the hour of Macquart's death. And amidst her amazement she felt angry, indignant with the sacrilegious hand that had penetrated this violation, and left that white open space agape like a yawning tomb. She stepped forward, yielding to a kind of fascination, and halted erect within the ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... to be hundreds of people in the room, nudging one another, waiting agape for him to do something idiotic; a well-advertised fool on parade. He stalked about, now shamefaced, now bursting out with a belligerent, "Aw, rats! I'll show 'em!" now plaintively beseeching, "I don't suppose I am helping Frazer, but it makes me ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... and prudent about a century ago began to regard the birth-rate? They beheld the geometrical progression of life catching up the arithmetical progression of food with fearful strides. Mankind became to them a devouring mouth, always agape, like a nestling's, and incessantly multiplying, like a bacillus. What was the good of improving the condition of Tom and Sal, if Tom and Sal, in consequence of the improvement, went their way and in a few years produced Dick, Poll, Bill, and Meg, who proceeded to eat up the ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... sample of his theological speech and his rule of faith, see ad. Smyrn. 1: [Greek: enoesa humas katertismenous en akineto pistei, hosper kathelomenous en to stauro tou kuriou Iesou Christou sarki te kai pneumati kai hedrasmenous en agape en to haimati Christou, peplerophoremenous eis ton kuriou hemon, alethos onta ek genous Dabid kata sarka, huion theou kata thelema kai dunamin theou, gegenemenon alethos ek parthenou, bebaptismenon hypo ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... and faced his audience from a different direction. His voice was strong, deep, and rang clearly and earnestly. His audience sat on the front edge of their chairs, and listened to something new, with mouths half agape. A few times Carey turned from the speaker to face the audience. He agonized in his heart that it was a closed session, and that his wife was not there to hear, and that the ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... it is doubtless believed by many to-day that the borders of the lakes which the authors of these "Relations" traversed are still possessed by Indians, or at best by half-civilized, half- barbaric peoples who would stand agape in the Louvre as the Goths stood before the temples and ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... unslack'd, with black lips bak'd Agape they hear'd me call: Gramercy! they for joy did grin And all at once their breath drew in ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge

... stood agape. It was no use pretending she didn't hear them. They were as unmistakable as knocks at a ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... then, responded Mr. Farnum, rising and standing by the cabin table. "Of course, the picturesque and romantic possibilities of the scheme are plain enough to me. We'll have the people at Spruce Beach agape with curiosity, then wild with enthusiasm. And, really, to be sure, we have to arouse the enthusiasm of the American people over this whole game. That's the surest way of forcing Congress to spend ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham

... of genuine scholarship among members of the race there will be a different attitude assumed towards it. But as long as the Negro prefers to construe owlish looks as wisdom, to bow down to clam like silence as profound philosophy, to stand agape over blatant mouthings as eloquence, and to measure mental calibre by bodily avoirdupois, he not only gives evidence of weakness in a lack of sound discrimination, but he subjects the entire race to consequent ...
— The Educated Negro and His Mission - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 8 • W. S. Scarborough

... protruded, his forehead receded obliquely; his ears formed one solid piece with head and neck—a horrible man. The other, Manteca, was so much human refuse; his eyes were almost hidden, his look sullen; his wiry straight hair fen over his ears, forehead and neck; his scrofulous lips hung eternally agape. Once more, Luis Cervantes felt his ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela

... stared at her agape, where she stood with her head back, one slender hand resting on her hip, one hovering about the butt of the gun, as if she challenged them to question her right ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... turned and saw that it was a monkey tied to a rope fastened to the limb of the tree. He stood upright on the ground, his jaws agape, and a look of devilish glee upon his uncannily manlike face. At the same moment a white man ran from the house and ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... Everard. My poor father, impoverished in purse, broken in health, sensitive in spirit, chooses to hide his wounds—chooses not to wear his heart on his sleeve for the Devonshire daws to peck at—chooses never to speak of his lost wife—and, lo! all the gossips of the country are agape for the news. She was an actress, was she not, Sir Everard? And when I ride across the country, at the heels of the hounds, it is only the spangles, and glitter, and theater glare breaking out again. I could despise it in others, but I did think better things ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... was right—they did fit—and in an hour afterwards Hans was on his way to the fete. When he arrived there many of his old friends stood agape for a few moments: but as stranger things had occurred in Germany than a man growing two feet in one night, they soon ceased to notice the alteration in Hans' appearance. Agnes was evidently struck with the improvement of the barber's figure, and for two whole hours did he enjoy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... with black lips baked, Agape they heard me call: Gramercy! they for joy did grin, And all at once their breath drew in, ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... and on the nape (37) of Cleinias' neck already mounts. The fact is, when they fared to the same school together, he caught the fever. This his father was aware of, and consigned him to me, hoping I might be able to do something for him. Ay, and his plight is not so sorry now. Once he would stand agape at him like one whose gaze is fixed upon the Gorgons, (38) his eyes one stony stare, and like a stone himself turn heavily away. But nowadays I have seen the statue actually blink. (39) And yet, may Heaven help me! my good sirs, I think, between ourselves, the culprit must have bestowed a kiss on ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon

... black lips baked, Agape they heard him call; Gramercy they for joy did grin, And all at once their breath drew in, As they had ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... organisation, fell on him. Sooner than add to the work of those in attendance on him, he would be seen preparing and cooking his own food; and because he could do it better than his native servant, he would clean his duck-gun, with the whole camp agape, until his ways were realised, at an Excellency doing his own work. Nor did he spare himself physically. His average day's walk, which satisfied him that he was in good health, was fourteen miles; but he often exceeded ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... really changed from a democracy to a ploutarchy, he had the good taste to scorn the vulgar pomp of kings,—"the horses led, and grooms besmeared with gold,"—all the theatrical paraphernalia and plebeian tinsel "which dazzle the crowd and set them all agape"; but his expenditures were those of an intellectual and accomplished oligarch. He was worthy, in many respects, to be the chief of those haughty merchants and manufacturers, who wielded more power, through the length of their purses and the cultivation of their brains, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... sandstone, dry and cruel, whipping dust into clouds that sunlight could never penetrate. Others prognosticated an ocean planet with little or no solid ground at all, populated by enormous serpents waiting to greet the first Earthlings with jaws agape. ...
— The Native Soil • Alan Edward Nourse

... from the watch-fires, from the sentries, the answer came pealing back: "Ave, Maximinus! Ave Maximinus Augustus!" From all sides men came rushing, half-clad, wild-eyed, their eyes staring, their mouths agape, flaming wisps of straw or flaring torches above their heads. The giant was caught up by scores of hands, and sat enthroned upon the bull-necks of the legionaries. "To the camp!" they yelled. "To the camp! Hail! Hail to ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... not that Hideous Bulk of Honour scape, Nadab that sets the gazing Crowd agape: That old Kirk-founder, whose course Croak could sing The Saints, the Cause, no Bishop, and no King: When Greatness clear'd his Throat, and scowr'd his Maw, Roard out Succession, and the Penal Law. Not so of old: another ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.

... and yourself are comparatively men of reading. In ciphering, and all schooling, you find yourself a long way before them; and you talk of problems, and foreign seas, and Latin declensions, in a way that sets them all agape. ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell



Words linked to "Agape" :   agape love, Christian theology, open, love, love feast, gaping, religious ritual, opened, religious ceremony



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