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Flinch   /flɪntʃ/   Listen
Flinch

noun
1.
A reflex response to sudden pain.  Synonym: wince.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Flinch" Quotes from Famous Books



... across the face. Nick's eyes flashed hot as a fire-coal. He set his teeth, but he did not flinch. "Do na thou strike me again, thou ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... dedicated man. He accepts risks with a laugh, and toil with, perhaps, a grumble, but he does not flinch. Obscure and inglorious perils are his, and hardships that only himself can gauge. Be sure that they are not unrecorded. They shine, and their splendour is hidden, like those lanterns that were hidden under the coats of the lantern-bearers. But there is, very surely, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... the bellows, to help us along to our fate," he added. "Well, let it do its worst; Jack Rawson won't flinch as long as he has ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... of the Danes, said: "Suffer a private combat to forestall a public slaughter, so that the danger of many may be bought off at the cost of a few. And if any of you shall take heart to fight it out with me, I will not flinch from these terms of conflict. But first of all I demand that you accept the terms I prescribe, the form whereof I have devised as follows: If I conquer, let freedom be granted us from taxes; if I am conquered, let the tribute be paid you as of old: For to-day ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... confuse readers for some generations. The leading and indisputable facts are, that the Spaniards fought well on land, but were ineffectual afloat, in their attempts to inflict injuries, though they put to sea in dashing style, and did not flinch in efforts to evade a superior force, until the fire of the Americans crushed them. In the incidents of warfare on the hills around and the waves before Santiago, it is fair to say that the Spaniards redeemed themselves from imputation of timidity, and fought in a manner ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... last week as clean as a whistle, only, thinks I, it'll make a stir before the time. Never mind, I'll have him yet. This Lee is a black sheep, lad. I'm glad you are here; you must watch him, and if you see him flinch, put a knife in him. He raised the country on me once before. I tell you, Jerry, that I'd be hung, and willing, to-morrow, to have that chap's life, and I'd have had it before now, only I had to keep still for the sake of the others. That man served me the meanest, dirtiest trick, twenty years ago, ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... ecstatically, "you are the deliverer of France! Hah!" he added, in tones full of regret. "And you will not be with us! The river—yes. They would never dream that we escaped that way. Quick, then. There is not a moment to be lost. You will not flinch?" ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... need in the press of battle. Arthur gave his commands to his captains, and ordained the order of the combat. He caused his host to march in rank and company at a slow pace towards the foe, so that when the battle was joined none might flinch but that he was sustained of his comrades. The host drew near to a certain mountain of those parts, and began to climb the hill. The Saxons held this mountain strongly, and defended the height, as though they were shut fast and safely behind walls. Small cause had the ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace

... werry fine, Mr Murray, sir," said Titely, "and I warn't going to flinch and holloa when one's poor mates wanted everything one could do to keep 'em in good heart; but I did get a good nick made in my shoulder, and the way it's been giving it to me all through this here red-hot march has been enough to make me sing out chi-ike ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... her, still laughing, yet with a heat that made her flinch involuntarily; kissed the pointed chin and quivering lips, the swift-shut eyes and soft cheeks, the little, trembling ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... satisfy the Dennises of 'that polite age,' with authorities from Virgil. Among the jests was a burlesque criticism of Tom Thumb. What Addison thought of the 'little images of Ridicule' set up against him, the last paragraph of this Essay shows, but the collation of texts shows that he did flinch a little. We now see how he modified many expressions in the reprint of this Essay upon ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... her mother, Constance Talmash. Pluck was a family characteristic of the Talmashes. Wicked as devils, and brave as lions. Old Talmash, the grandfather, shot his valet in a paroxysm of delirium tremens,' said Colonel Madison. 'She's a splendid woman, and she won't flinch. I'd rather back her than bet ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... Obviously not. Let us suppose that you have been hypnotized and I repeat the same suggestion. What happens then? You readily accept the suggestion as being factual. Should I proceed to stick you with the pin, you do not even flinch. In fact, you do not even feel the pain. Does this sound incredible? Isn't this exactly the same procedure that the dentist uses with his patient when he has hypnotized him for the ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers

... home and its loved ones have proved the talisman of many a tempted heart, and the solace of thousands of suffering, weary veterans. I had much to do, and prepared to leave. I said, 'Brave men, farewell! When I go home, I'll tell them that men that never flinch before a foe, sing hymns of praise in the rifle-pits of Vicksburg. I'll tell them that eyes that never weep for their own suffering, overflow at the name of home and the sight of the pictures of their wives and children. They'll feel more than ever ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... looked penetratingly into his pupil's face. There was a touch of wonder, of pity, perhaps also of some displeasure, expressed in this fixed gaze. It lasted so long that Dino turned a little pale, although he did not flinch beneath it. Finally, the Prior lowered the lamp, gave it back to him, and walked away in silence, with his head lowered and his hands behind his back. Dino followed to light him down the dark corridors, and at the door of the Prior's cell, fell on his knees, as the custom ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... to your grandmother, will you, Clifford!" burst out Semi-Colon, quick to rally to the defense of his cousin. "Nobody ever knew him to flinch when it came to the test; ain't that ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... he was drunker than usual. It would have been delightful to tell how this unmitigated ruffian had been "held up" by some innocent tenderfoot from the East, and made to dance at the muzzle of a quite new and daintily ornamented revolver, for the loud-mouthed blowhard seemed just the man to flinch when real danger confronted him; but, sad to say, there was nothing of the white feather about Hickory Sam, for he feared neither man, nor gun, nor any combination of them. He was as ready to fight a dozen as one, and once had actually "held up" the United States ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... forward, painfully conscious that all eyes were fixed upon him. Yet he did not flinch. He beckoned the bargeman aside, and in a few broken, gasping sentences told him the main facts of the ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur

... saw him, but marking his small size and mild manner did not flinch from his position. With one revolver still leveled at the girls he drew another from a hip pocket and turned it ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne

... in good case," said he, winking significantly, "and won't flinch at seeing service: she has laid by long enough to refit and be made tight. And pray how does poor Monseer Doleful do? Is ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... from the poltroon fever; he but drew back to strike hard, and to sell his life dearly. They ringed him in—his own men who had turned against him—and he stood with his back to the gate. He did not flinch, and meant to fight, hopeless as it was, for all around him were white, shining swords, that needed but a word from Aramon to be red with his blood. But the new ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... good kid," said Moran, with a grin. Nor did he flinch when the weapon in Wade's hand seemed actually to stiffen under ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... tilting with one of the handsomest women of the time was an extremely embarrassing one. Each youth was bent to withhold his charge in full volley, to cause his steed to swerve at the full shock, or in some other way to flinch from doing the utmost which was necessary to gain the victory, lest, in so gaining it, he might cause irreparable injury to the beautiful opponent he tilted with. But the Lady of Aspramonte was not one who could be conquered ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... with the blade, to measure the distance, as it were, for a clean effective stroke. Then, drawing back a step, he quickly raised the sword again and struck a blow at me with all his might. The sword passed disagreeably close to my neck under my chin, but did not touch me. I would not flinch, nor speak, and my demeanour seemed to impress him almost to the point of frightening him. He became reluctant to continue his diabolical performance; but the impatience and turbulence of the crowd were at their highest, and the Lamas nearer to him gesticulated ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... their ambition, it is a vice that leans so to virtue's side that it hardly needs an apology. As to their injustice, or rather dishonesty, I have said what I have to say on that matter. I am not going to flinch from the accusation I have brought, though I am aware that in bringing it I have thrown away any hope that I might have had of carrying with me the good-will of the Americans for my book. The love of money—or rather of making money—carried to an extreme, has lessened that instinctive respect ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... attempts to dissuade him, saying: I will certainly show myself to thy master: go, tell him Elijah is here. And when afterwards the heavenly fire had descended, and the prophets of Baal were standing bewildered by their altar, he did not flinch from arresting the whole crowd of them, leading them down to the valley of the Kishon brook beneath and there slaying them, so that the waters ran crimson to the sea. This fearlessness was also conspicuous ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... lashing herself into fury. Nearer and nearer she drew to us (we were on the floor beside her); then she stretched out her arm with its clenched fist, and swung it straight for my eye. Within a hair's-breadth she drew back, and struck out for Victory's; but God helped her not to flinch. ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... the wheel? The rack? The thumbscrew? Sink me, ye shall see how an Englishman can die! Even from these I flinch not." ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... returned Sarrion sharply. And Juanita rather drew back as a fencer may flinch who ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... the men as they rapidly obeyed orders, and not a man seemed to flinch as the long gun of the English schooner sent forth its heavy missile again, this time to strike the water some distance ahead and then rise and go crashing amongst the trees, whose leaves could be seen to ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... of the boys flinch. He dropped his eyes, remembering the Lobby's efficient spy service on Earth and wondering what it was like here. But he ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey

... men can defend themselves with any kind of weapons. My men are stout fellows, not used to flinch at the sound of a round shot ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... complained, with his usual vehemence and asperity, of the indignities to which innocent and honourable men, highly descended and highly esteemed, had been subjected by Aaron Smith and the wretches who were in his pay. The leading Whigs, with great judgment, demanded an inquiry. Then the Tories began to flinch. They well knew that an inquiry could not strengthen their case, and might weaken it. The issue, they said, had been tried; a jury had pronounced; the verdict was definitive; and it would be monstrous to give the false witnesses who had been ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... ungovernable temper leaped brutally from Carl's eyes. Leaning forward he caught the girl's hands in a vicious grip that hurt her cruelly though for all her swift color she did not flinch. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... cool as if he were keeping count of a drove of steers, except that he tallied with the barrel of a six-shooter instead of a note-book and pencil. The Bum Actor's face was deathly white and his pistol hand trembled a little, but he did not flinch. He ranged the lucky ones in line farther along, and kept them there. "Anything to get home," he had told the Texan when he had slipped Bonner's other revolver, an hour before, into ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith

... which we have had rather too much in the North—to make wise laws and come to just decisions in the conduct of my business—laws and decisions which work for my own good in the first instance—for theirs in the second; but I will neither be forced to give my reasons, nor flinch from what I have once declared to be my resolution. Let them turn out! I shall suffer as well as they: but at the end they will find I have not bated nor ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... days of practice, had won the respect of all. Just how favorable an impression he had made he did not himself suspect. He had instinctive quickness and no sense of fear—that was something that had dropped from him forever. It was not that he had to conquer the impulse to flinch, as most boys do; it simply did not exist with him. The sight of a phalanx of bone and muscle starting for his end to sweep him off his feet roused only a sort of combative rage, the true joy of battle. He loved to go plunging into ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... had recovered from his first feeling of surprise, did not flinch. Evidently she spoke with entire honesty, suspecting nothing, and it would be folly to look for more ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot

... me that the time is not far away when we shall escape from this pit of infamy. If it lie within my power this girl shall be saved from her odious abductor. We can depend upon The Lifter—you of course will not flinch.' ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... start, the reaction of the prisoner under a blow. But apart from the coarse cynicism of it, which irritated him, it was no more than he had foreseen, and from then on till the end he did not flinch. ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... Aristius should come by? My rattlebrain right well he knew. We stop. "Whence, friends, and whither to?" He asks and answers. Whilst we ran The usual courtesies, I began To pluck him by the sleeve, to pinch His arms, that feel but will not flinch, By nods and winks most plain to see Imploring him to rescue me. He, wickedly obtuse the while, Meets all my signals with a smile. I, choked with rage, said, "Was there not Some business, I've forgotten what, You ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... however, men were falling and those who were left began to waver. "Steady, men! Don't flinch," came the shout again. "Ah-hah, you would, would ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple

... had to go to earn money at hop-tying, haymaking, harvesting, potato-picking, swede-trimming, and at such work they came immediately, just as the men did, under conditions which made it a vice to flinch. As a rule they would leave work in the afternoon in time to get home and cook a meal in readiness for their husbands later, and at that hour one saw them on the roads trudging along, under the burden of coats, dinner-baskets, tools, and so on, very ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... a pretty fair idea of the danger of the task that had been assigned to him. But he was not the boy to flinch in ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin

... through which the pirate squadron must pass. A council of war was called, at which, after a spirited speech from Lolonois, it was agreed to land and carry the works by storm—the leader declaring that he would pistol any man who should flinch, with his own hand. The Spanish forces numbered eight hundred men, well appointed; but nothing could daunt the resolution of the pirates. The Spaniards conducted themselves bravely; and not until five hundred ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... all around him and growled his terriblest. For some unexplainable reason it did not work. Cash sat stiff as though he had turned to some insensate metal. From where he sat watching—curious to see what Cash would do—Bud saw him flinch and stiffen as a man does under pain. And because Bud had a sore spot in his own heart, Bud felt a quick stab of understanding and sympathy. Cash Markham's past could not have been a blank; more likely it held too much of sorrow for the salve of speech to lighten ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... said the Bart, laughing, 'he would have had Berlin. But you are senior officer; give us a lead, and we'll see who will be the first to flinch.' ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... safety but that of others. In all that concerned him personally, such as consoling the dying or caring for the wounded, he acted quite openly, and no danger that he encountered on his way ever caused him to flinch from ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... in carving for them of his Roast-beef, Capons, Turkey-py, Neats-tongue, or some other savoury bit to make their mouths relish their liquor the better; and then stand fast Bowls and glasses for they resolve not to flinch from it. And indeed why should he not? for he is now a whole estate richer then he was before; and what need ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... He did not flinch. Dropping his reins, and driving in the spurs once more, he met them in full shock. With his left hand he hurled aside the left-hand lance, with his right he hurled his own with all his force at the right-hand foe, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... degenerate days. We have still strong thinkers amongst us; men of untiring perseverance, who flinch before no difficulties, who never hide the knot which their readers are only too willing that they should let alone; men who dare write what the ninety-nine out of every hundred will pronounce a dry book; who pledge themselves, not to the public, but to their subject, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... her on the high-peaked Arab saddle, the strain grew almost intolerable, but her brave heart did not flinch under that exquisite pain. Though she could not speak, she strove to reward him with a valiant smile, and even conquered the gush of tears that gave momentary tribute to her agony. And now she lay in a dead faint, pallid and inert, while Royson said bitter things ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... wilderness of dark mountains, which was even more difficult to escape from than the one to the right. But the middle road, which was narrow and straight, went right up the steep and flinty sides of the hill, and was the route that led direct to Mount Zion. Not being the man to flinch from any difficulty, however great, good Christian hesitated not a moment to choose the middle road; and accordingly he fell from running to walking, and from walking to going, and from going to clambering upon his hands and knees, till he had made his way ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... as there is a prospect of fighting for the persecuted Protestants of Holland. And oh, Mr. Francis, could it be now? You know we daily exercise with arms at the castle, and we are both strong and sturdy for our age, and believe me you should not see us flinch before the Spaniards however many of them ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... patients are positively thankful to be wounded, nor that they do not wish to recover with reasonable rapidity. But that they are glad to be safe in England once more is undeniable. The more honour to them that few, if any, flinch from returning to duty—when they know only too well what that duty consists of. But they make no bones about their opinion. Not long ago I was the conductor of a party of convalescents who went to a special matinee of a military drama. The theatre was entirely ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... for me to do myself. Now my health is suffering very much, which is attributed to the sedentary life I lead, and it may well be to the vexation my mind suffers when anything goes counter. But when I do come home, I hope I shall not be thought to flinch, for I have worn out all the officers and all the ships, two or three times over, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... not flinch. He leaped upon the little brown man, getting a clinch that held the rascal powerless. Then Noll coolly took away the knife, striking the blade into the tree trunk and ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock

... almost sullen reluctance which Gale had never seen in them before. Raiders were one thing, Rojas was another; Camino del Diablo still another; but that vast and desolate and unwatered waste of cactus and lava, the Sonora Desert, might appall the stoutest heart. Gale felt his own sink—felt himself flinch. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... But the wagon was not very far in our rear, and if rhino were allowed to get past us, and should choose to attack it, he might easily play havoc with my diminished team of oxen; therefore, hastily dismounting, lest Prince, despite his training, should flinch and swerve at the critical moment and so spoil my aim, I raised my rifle to my shoulder, and, waiting until the now thoroughly exasperated beast was within ten yards of me, fired and sent a bullet through his right ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... shindy," Eddy said, still in that tone of strange glee, to his sister. To his great amazement, she caught him suddenly by his arm, the hurt one, but he did not flinch. ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... How you felt, I mean. I ought to have come over a week ago. You haven't anybody to talk to—that's the trouble, Roger, really. I know. Now let's have the whole thing out. Come. And don't be afraid of me. Why, I could tie you all up in bandages if you needed it. And not flinch. ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley

... stayed in the sky, but one mutinous foot so keenly smote the roof that her nurse, approaching behind, stopped short, and from Hugh came a laugh, a thin, involuntary treble, which caused Ramsey visibly to flinch. ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... turn to flinch. A certain famous law-suit in the history of Bartlett & Bangs had brought out some startling testimony, and the subject was one to which reference was never allowed in Madam's presence. At Eleanor's words ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... what I was bringing Helen to, and she didn't flinch," said Sheppard, somewhat surprised at the tone in ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... and should have satisfied my people by a deserved death. And yet I live! yet I do not quit the detested light! but I will quickly follow thee." Then he rose up, and though crippled by the wound in his thigh, and suffering anguish from its smart, he did not flinch, but ordered his attendants to bring his courser. This was a horse famous for its speed and its prompt obedience to the rein. When it was brought, he accosted it: "Long have we lived together, Rhoebus, and many great ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... anything unusual here,' she said, with a slight motion of her hand before her brow, which did not for a moment flinch from its immovable and otherwise expressionless gaze, 'as I know there are unusual feelings here,' raising the hand she pressed upon her bosom, and heavily returning it, 'consider that there is no common meaning in the appeal I am going ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... claimed Breed's swollen foot and stiffened it, numbing all sense of pain. He felt comfortable and content. Then Peg moved up and sniffed critically at the trapped foot. He set his teeth in it but Breed did not flinch. The three-legged coyote crouched beside him and turned his head sidewise, the right side of his jaws flat on the trap, his teeth sliding along the cold steel and shearing away the frozen flesh. The leg ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts

... forward, a sudden anger in his eyes; he raised his hand as if he would have pressed it across her scornful mouth, and kept back her bitter words. But she did not flinch; and, pointing at him with her finger, she cried to the bishop, in ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... instant, Lord Hastings will be here; this morn I mean To prove him to the quick; then if he flinch, No more but this—away with him at once, He must be mine or nothing——But he comes! Draw nearer this way, and observe me ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe

... nerving herself not to flinch at this confrontation with the practical. He saw too that her courage and her self-command would have deceived any one but him. The very pluck with which she nodded her comprehension of his idea, and her sympathy with it, enraged him to a point at which, so it seemed to him, ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... flushed pink with anger as she jumped out of bed, indignant at being deprived of her share of the unpleasant trip to the markets. Three times a week she nerved herself for that heartbreaking journey in the raw morning air, resolved never to let Chook see her flinch from her duty. As she started to dress herself with feverish haste, Chook recovered enough from his astonishment to ask her where she ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... banquet, but the invited one tarried. Very well! If not to-day, to-morrow! He repeated a verse of Verlaine, and with his wife dutifully at his side bowed to the two Americans and told them of the pleasure experienced. Ermentrude, her candid eyes now reproachful and suspicious, did not flinch as she took his hand—it seemed to melt in hers—but her farewell was conventional. In the street, before they seated themselves in their carriage, Mrs. Sheldam shook ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... elfishly, and trippingly—for very joy it made one laugh. The tear rolled down Joyce's face, as the smile replaced it, and dropped upon the thin cheek of the baby. He did not flinch, and the staring eyes did not falter, but something drew the mother's attention. As the final tripping notes died away, she ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... mother, bore my part in it! I must be named with him. My father's shaft Ran my life close, but yet I never flinch'd. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... him closely, as if to discover whether he was in earnest, but he did not flinch. "Young feller," she said, "you ain't layin' out to take no excursions ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed

... white blast of the Sun struck across his staring eyes, but he did not flinch. Unconscious, his hands clutched at the control knobs as his sagging legs let him drift weightlessly toward the floor. He was like a drowning swimmer, out of control and helplessly ...
— Rescue Squad • Thomas J. O'Hara

... ill! For he is like a man Consumed by some strange sickness: wasted, wan,— His eyes are dimmed so that he scarce can see; His ears are dulled; his fearless face is pale As one who walks to meet a certain doom Yet will not flinch. It is most pitiful,— But ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke

... see him yet, in my mind, on his knees, holding the wagon from rolling into the canyon till the wheel could be blocked and the brakes set. Then, when bidden to start the load, he did not flinch. He was the best ox I ever saw, without exception, and his loss nearly broke up the expedition. His like I could not find again. He had a decent burial. A headboard marks his grave and tells of the aid he rendered in this expedition ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... Epidaurus and of Troezen, of Hermione, Halieis, and Sicyon and Pellene, in the days before any of these had revolted. (3) Not even when the commander of the foreign brigade, picking up the divisions already across, left them behind and was gone—not even so did they flinch or turn back, but hired a guide from Prasiae, and though the enemy was massed round Amyclae, slipped through his ranks, as best they could, and so reached Sparta. It was then that the Lacedaemonians, besides other honours ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... for the good of their party. The mother sent word to the Duke of Rohan, her son, that he was to put no faith in her letters, since she might be made to write them by force, and that no consideration of her pitiable condition should make her flinch to the prejudice of her party, whatever harm she might be made to suffer." [Memoires du Duc de Rohan, t. i. p. 395.] Worn out by so much suffering, the old Duchess of Rohan died in 1631 at her castle Du Pare: she had been released from captivity ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... forgetful of God!" On another occasion the great Persian teacher gave his views on the religious life thus: "To lay aside what you have in your head (selfish desires and ambitions); to freely bestow what you have in your hand; and never to flinch from ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... didn't go bad again with to-day's running. Pop, Dave, Jeff and a few other wise ones examined the weak ankle and disagreed over the exact cause and nature of the weakness. It seemed all right. Smoky did not flinch from rubbing, though he did lift his foot away from strange hands. They questioned Bud, who could offer no positive information on the subject, except that once he and Smoky had rolled down a bluff together, and Smoky had been lame for a ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... readily enough, and the blue eyes did not flinch, but the smile was a trifle fixed ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... to them. It's true enough, Alicia. You can scold all you like. I know I deserve it, and I won't flinch. I did really intend to take him, but when it came to the point I couldn't. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... observed, in passing, that the poets, though they have more to say about wine than solid food, because the former more directly stimulates the intellect and the feelings, do not flinch from the subject of eating and drinking. There is infinite zest in the above passage from Milton, and even more in the famous description of a dainty supper, given by Keats in his "Eve of Saint Agnes." Could Queen Mab herself desire to sit down to anything ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... education of the children of his factory hands, no parents would consent to settle in the district and he would be without workers in his mill. As a consequence Owen found himself in the position of education authority, privy purse and organiser, and he did not flinch from the situation; he imposed no cheap makeshift, because he believed in education as an end and not as an economic means; a twofold institution was therefore established by him in 1816, one part for the children ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... to ask our hearts if they will not flinch and tremble?" said Peter Mayer, almost contemptuously. "When the enemy returned to the Tyrol last May, he burned down eight houses which belonged to me, and for some time I did not know but that my ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... gaze took in every detail of the situation, noting the position of the rocks that a receding wave left bare, so that he might find a clear path or trail in his dash for life. Nor did his gaze flinch as he saw the advancing wave break against ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt

... wind were more than usually blusterous, when the stool was shifted a few feet round the corner. To complain of cold in sitting out of doors, hatless and coatless, while Fairway told true stories between the cuts of the scissors, would have been to pronounce yourself no man at once. To flinch, exclaim, or move a muscle of the face at the small stabs under the ear received from those instruments, or at scarifications of the neck by the comb, would have been thought a gross breach of good manners, considering that Fairway did it all for nothing. A bleeding about the poll on ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... the answer,—spoken not without a shudder. "He did not flinch through all the trial, Jacqueline. And his old mother says, 'Blessed be Jesus ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... honest opinion, or whether it is to be overawed and silenced by the persecutions of an inflated, litigious, soured novelist, who, in his better days by the favor of the Press, made the money with which he now seeks to oppress its conductors, and sap its independence." He did not purpose to flinch from his duty. Accordingly he announced that he should continue publishing these ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... moving Peaches to his room, three extra meals to provide before to-morrow night, something to interest her through the long day: it was a contract, surely! Mickey faced it gravely, but he did not flinch. He did not know how it was to be done, but he did know it must be done. "Get" her they should not. Whatever it had been his mother had feared for him, nameless though the horror was, from that he must save Lily. Mickey had thought it must be careless nurses or lack of love. ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... down, They would meet the angel death in his sternest, maddest frown; But it could not gallant Armstrong, dauntless Vollmer, or brave Lynch, Though ten thousand deaths confronted, from the task of honor flinch! ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... regiment were all veterans; but thousands of the Ohio lads were recruits who had never seen battle before. Now shell and shot were teaching them the terrible realities. He saw many a face grow pale, as his own had often grown pale, in the first minutes of battle, but he did not see any one flinch. ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler

... gun is pointed right to fire. A skilful shot can tell whether he is shooting too high or too low just as he pulls the trigger. The brain, head, and eyes and trigger-finger must all work in harmony or you will never be a good shot. Never flinch as you shoot. This is a very common fault of beginners and it is fatal ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... word. But her eyes said enough, and I saw Jim flinch as if he had been struck in ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... She did not flinch. He perceived with fear that everything around him was still. She did not move a hair's breadth; his own body did not stir. An imperturbable calm enveloped their two motionless figures, the house, the town, all ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... among the blacks, bond and free alike, toward the whites. And steadily with that patience which Lowell calls the "passion of great hearts," he pushed deeper and deeper into the slave lump the explosive principles of inalienable human rights. He did not flinch from kindling in the bosoms of the slaves a hostility toward the masters as burning as that which he felt toward them in his own breast. He had, indeed, reached such a pitch of race enmity that, as he was often ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke

... fall, and pointing it at the other's head, said coolly: "I could kill you, my friend, so easy! But it is not my whim. Till ten o'clock is not long to wait, and then, just here, one of us shall die. Is it not so?" The Irishman did not flinch before the pistol. He said with low fierceness, "At ten o'clock, or now, or any time, or at any place, y'll find me ready to break the back of the lies y've spoken, or be broken meself. Lucy Rives is my wife, and she's true and straight as the sun in the sky. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... one. It is one thing to delve into subtleties by one's self with pen in hand, or to study out abstruse points in books, but quite another thing to make a popular lecture out of them. Nevertheless I must not flinch from my task here, for I think that this particular point forms perhaps the vital knot of the present philosophic situation, and I imagine that the times are ripe, or almost ripe, for a serious attempt to ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... young Cullison there was no sound in the room but his voice. Luck's eyes burned like live coals. The color faded from the face of his daughter so that her lips were gray as cigar ash. Yet she sat up straight and did not flinch. ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... "tribute of honest conviction," were made eloquent and real. The boy meant it when he said it. To carry out his law of sincerity and self-trust the man had to sacrifice much that was dear to him, but he did not flinch from his early principles. ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... was restless, and when the doctor came the next morning he found her worse, which made him change the treatment, and Perrine was obliged to go again to the druggist. This time he asked five francs to fill out the prescription. She did not flinch, but paid bravely, although she could scarcely breathe when she got outside the store. If the expenses continued to increase at this rate poor Palikare would have to be sold on Wednesday. He would have to go now anyway. And if the doctor prescribed something ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... voice of a man who has conquered the bitterness of death). Your watch is two minutes slow by the town clock, which I can see from here, General. (The town clock strikes the first stroke of twelve. Involuntarily the people flinch at the sound, and a subdued groan breaks from them.) Amen! my life for the ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw

... total of sixty-eight aldermen (in case the ordinance has to be passed over the mayor's veto), is all that now stands between him and the realization of his dreams. What a triumph for his iron policy of courage in the face of all obstacles! What a tribute to his ability not to flinch in the face of storm and stress! Other men might have abandoned the game long before, but not he. What a splendid windfall of chance that the money element should of its own accord take fright at the Chicago idea ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... when, cursing him, he (Harry) threw it after the body of the cane, and said, "Now we are equal." The other's answer was to draw a knife,[3] and was about to plunge it into Harry, who disdained to flinch, when Mr. Henderson threw himself on Mr. Sparks ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... flinch beneath that gaze which could make every cheek in France blanch with unnamed terror, and after that slight moment of hesitation Robespierre ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... dollars . . . Mr. Daniel Blair put down four," said Anne, half afraid. But Lorenzo did not flinch. ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... while the Southern masses, flushed by victory everywhere else, pressed harder. Terrible reports of defeat and destruction came to him continually, but he did not flinch. He turned the same calm face to everything, and said to the generals that whatever happened they would ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler

... neighboring works at Johnstown. We soon saw that he was a character. Every movement told it. He had volunteered as a private during the Civil War and carried himself so finely that he became captain of a company which was never known to flinch. Much of the success of the Edgar Thomson Works ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... those who govern continue to listen to the insidious advice of the party denominated 'Saints;' and I afraid that it will not be until these islands are separated from the mother-country, that she will appreciate their value. Our resolution once formed, white slaves (for slaves we are) will not flinch; and the islands of the Caribbean Sea will be enrolled as another star, and add another stripe to the independent flag, ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... moves; there is a breeze, and the girls come out on the gallants' arms to drink it in. As they lift their brows and sigh their comfort the lightning grows brighter, the thunder comes more promptly and louder, and the maidens flinch and half scream, yet linger for one more draft of the blessed coolness. Suddenly an inverted tree of blinding light branches down the sky, and the thunder crashes in one's very ears; the couples recoil into a group at the door, the lightning again fills heaven and earth, it shows ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... decidedly sick. He was country-born himself, and, being no mere dreamer of dreams, realised that it was as well that country people should not flinch at the less poetic side of their lives, but this callousness struck him as horrible in a young child like Phoebe. Yet as he saw Ishmael wince he regretted the very sensibility in the boy, the lack of which had shocked him in Phoebe. He knew Ishmael had ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... face before him. There was a pronounced curve of her mouth, a slight tension in the chiseled nostril—in fact, an indefinable disdain that had not been there before. It would become Athor well. Kenkenes understood the look but he did not flinch. Instead he let his head drop slowly until he looked at her from under his brows. Then he summoned into his eyes all the wounded feeling, pathos, soft reproach and appeal, of which his graceless young heart was ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... and bombed me. All that actually happened was that a band of little parrakeets flew down and alighted nearby. When I discovered this, it seemed a disconcerting anti-climax, just as one can make the bravest man who has been under rifle-fire flinch by spinning a match ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... remedy, and he had been a grateful patient. Here was another chance, and possibly another grateful patient; and this being a case of a gunshot wound, I was rather keen on attending to it, for the Polynesians and Melanesians will stand any amount of cutting about and never flinch (and there are no coroners in the South Seas to ask silly questions if the patient dies from a mistake of ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... be merciless, but he continued not to flinch. "I think it might have some effect on our personal understanding. Chad's of real importance—or can easily become so ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... so very common for men to flinch under ridicule, that it is said to be a good test of courage. An old English ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... admitted, controlling a flinch. "Honestly, Fay, that thing's got a gleam in its eye as if it had ideas of its own. ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... in his own defeat. When Ross relaxed somewhat, the other pushed against him, only to have Ross flinch to one side. Kurt could not stop himself, and his head cracked against the wheel of the cat. ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... man I have seen but once, a man who may be anything, a—a thief, a ploughman, a runaway groom for aught I know." Now, watching him beneath disdainful drooping lashes, she saw Barnabas flinch at this, and the curve of her scornful lips ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... master parson," growled the offender, "you are thin in the legs, but I am not too drunk to shoot snipe." With his gun he menaced John, who did not flinch. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... duke, and suppose, which is far from likely, that she is able to obtain an audience with him, what is there for her to say? She can not very well just call the man a scoundrel! And as for the Lapraik affair, if he has the rascality to do the act, it's not likely that he will flinch at the ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... in the corner there, and you must lend us a hand to get rid of him:" then, holding up the light, what was the surprise of the poor Comedian to espy a dead body of a man—"You can help us to get him away, and by G——you shall, too, it's of no use to flinch now." ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... and muscles of steel; and when the call came to them they answered. Though the pain of death was upon him he did not flinch. He stood before her like a rock, in all his great manhood; but a rock on whose summit the waves had cast the wealth of their foam, for his face was as white as snow. She saw and understood; but in the madness ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... us, a band of full a hundred and fifty men-at-arms set on us in the forest. Our brave thirty—down they went on all side. I remember the tumult, the heavy mace uplifted, and my father's shield thrust over me. I can well-nigh hear his voice saying, 'Flinch not, Gaston, my brave wolf-cub!' But then came a fall, man and horse together, and I went down stunned, and knew no more till a voice over me said, 'That whelp is stirring—another sword-thrust!' But another replied, 'He bears the features ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... unpleasant part was when Crabbe not only insisted on my declaring on oath that I did not think Bullock meant to strike the old woman, but on my actually repeating the very words he had said, which he probably thought I should flinch from doing; but he thereby made it the worse for himself. No doubt he and Crabbe had reckoned on our general unpopularity, and had not judged it so as to discover the reaction that had set in. An endeavour to show that we were acting as spies on the trustworthy old ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not flinch; if he had not foreseen the amount he expected the demand, and he continued ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot

... a gesture that kept some of the men near him from rushing forward. Tom did not appear to notice the demonstration at all. Certainly he did not flinch. ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock

... Would she flinch or faint, or cry out with fear? If her unconscious feet had not advanced very near to the Border she would certainly do one or the other. Indeed, it was with an inward quaking of fear for her that her father had told her to turn. It might well have meant the difference ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... closed in and set her ablaze. Instantly the hands on fire duty sprang to their work. But the flames rushed in through the ports; and the men were forced a step back. Farragut at once called out: "Don't flinch from the fire, boys. There's a hotter fire than that for those who don't do their duty!" Whereupon they plied their hoses to such good effect that the fire was soon got under control. Farragut calmly resumed his walk up and down the poop, while the gunners ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood

... have seen them! They yelled till they were hoarse. Some sang. Others, war-hardened veterans, who had faced the death hail of a machine-gun with a laugh, men who had gone through the horrors of artillery bombardments and had seen their fellows mangled and torn without a flinch, broke down and ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various

... also, he and Steger were constantly to be met with in courts of law, for he was constantly being reexamined in some petition in bankruptcy. They were heartbreaking days, but he did not flinch. He wanted to stay in Philadelphia and fight the thing to a finish—putting himself where he had been before the fire; rehabilitating himself in the eyes of the public. He felt that he could do it, too, if he were not actually sent to prison for a long term; ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... hero of yore upon his single arm, to carry him through all difficulties and dangers. To tell the simple truth, he wanted nothing more to complete him as a statesman than to think always right, for no one can say but that he always acted as he thought. He was never a man to flinch when he found himself in a scrape, but to dash forward through thick and thin, trusting, by hook or by crook, to make all things straight in the end. In a word, he possessed in an eminent degree that great quality in ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... must be said, and said again, for such is the truth, are still facing us. Fifteen German army corps and the whole of the Austrian force are facing Russia. Yet the formidable mass which assails us has not made us flinch in any part of our line, and in many cases our enemy has drawn back under the ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times



Words linked to "Flinch" :   jump, retract, move, startle, recoil, shrink back, quail, start



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