Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Havoc   /hˈævək/   Listen
Havoc

noun
1.
Violent and needless disturbance.  Synonym: mayhem.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Havoc" Quotes from Famous Books



... frightful. "Nothing was left undone by the magistrates," says an eyewitness, with great approbation, "which could serve for the correction and amendment of the poor people." It was long before the judges and hangmen rested from their labors. When at last the havoc was complete, it might be supposed that a sufficient vengeance had been taken for the "day of the ill-burned," and an adequate amount of "amendment" provided ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... one day followed another, and Turnbull read and yawned and dozed and tried to talk to the charming senoritas, but couldn't muster enough Castilian, and Traynor chalked the decks for "horse billiards" and shuffleboard, and everybody took a hand at times, and one evening, despite the havoc moist salt air plays with catgut, Pancha's guitar and that of the purser were brought into requisition, and Pancha was made to sing, a thing she didn't do too well as yet, and Pancha knew it without asking when she looked in Loring's eyes, and no power or persuasion ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... another ill, so that we have there, in all, now, only fifteen or sixteen; that the captives are more exposed to its ravages, than others; that the great redemptions by the Spaniards, Portuguese, and Neapolitans, and the havoc made by the plague, had now left not more than four hundred slaves in Algiers; so that their redemption was become not only exorbitant, but almost inadmissible; that common sailors were held at four hundred pounds sterling, and that ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... between the grim leafless trees was now swept clean of both snow and hail by the streams of heavy rain which had poured the previous night, and the air was mild. Much havoc had been wrought in places by the furious storm; the rocky ground was littered with branches and twigs of all sizes; rivers of yellow mud ran where the clay road should be, and against this desolation there glowed occasional plants of bright green, low along the ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... and Goths followed, pressing him sharply, making havoc in his rear-guard, reaching Chalons so closely upon his march that the Goths, under Torismond, the young and valiant son of their king, were able to seize a commanding height in the midst of the field, driving back the Huns who were ascending ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris

... supper, and the excitement of the bear-killing, they were all more or less ready for bed. The professor figured that the sun would not appear again to the Crusoes on this island in the air for quite fourteen hours. They all ought to get sufficient sleep before that time. The havoc wrought by the rays of the torrid sun upon the glacier had been apparent as they came over it to this fringe of trees at the base of the cliff. It might be necessary for them to move quickly from the ice to save ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... monotonous life we led. It was an interposition of Divine Providence, that in our destitute and helpless condition we were not afflicted with any pestilential disease; as in the crowded state we were in, it must have made rapid and fearful havoc in our midst. At length it was rumored that the prisoners were to be removed; but where to, none of them knew. Several weeks passed on, and they were relapsing into their ordinary indifference to the state of things around them, when one morning word was passed among us that a draft of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... of Man, which have made this havoc, cannot be the rights of the people. For to be a people and to have these rights are incompatible. The one supposes the presence, the other the absence, of a state of civil society.—BURKE, Appeal from the New to the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... who has caused nearly as much upheaval in the world as Helen of Troy, is about to appear among us. On leaving Melbourne by coach, she presented the booking clerk with an autographed copy of a work by the famous Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Young gentlemen of Ballarat, look out for your hearts! Havoc will assuredly be ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... into arrear, particularly in the more remote districts. But the embarrassment of the state was not the worst part of the material distress. Everywhere the fields lay fallow: even where the war did not make havoc, there was a want of hands for the hoe and the sickle. The price of the -medimnus- (a bushel and a half) had risen to 15 -denarii- (10s.), at least three times the average price in the capital; and many would have died of absolute ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... then, why you refuse to let me—his old friends—help him." Miss Hitchcock spoke impatiently. She was beginning to feel angry with this impassive woman, who was probably ignorant of the havoc she ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... bees are zoa) let me record that there is a legend of a fox having been killed in our drawing-room (on the ground-floor with French windows) during some tenancy in my absence,—only fancy the havoc of such a strife! but all had been cleared up before our return. Also, it is memorable (and I saw it myself) that a hard-pressed stag from Sir Gilbert Heathcote's hunt took refuge in our harness-room,—to ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... manner, moved her to a vague touch of dread. Earnestly she looked at him,—wonderingly, and with a passionate reproach in her pure, true eyes. And still he smiled, while the fiends of envy and malice made havoc in his soul. ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... the passionate eloquence of his expression which wrought havoc in the drawing-rooms of society, and made peasant girls carrying baskets turn round to look at him. The languorous fascination of his glance impressed one with the depth of his thoughts and lent weight to ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... before her thus: The price of cattle and horses had fallen so of late years that it was impossible to make much of a living by breeding them. Sheep were the only profitable article to have nowadays, and it would he impossible to run them on Bruggabrong or either of the Bin Bins. The dingoes would work havoc among them in no time, and what they left the duffers would soon dispose of. As for bringing police into the matter, it would be worse than useless. They could not run the offenders to earth, and their ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... of the piers and some old roof marks suggest that it was originally an E.E. cruciform fabric, altered by Perp. builders, and heightened by the erection of a clerestory. There is documentary evidence that a "public collection" was made in 1561 to repair the havoc caused by the collapse of the central tower. The transeptal chapels were once brilliant with statuary and colour, but the axes and hammers of the image breakers have successfully purged them of their original glory. All that is left for the admiration of the modern visitor are a few gaping ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade

... lovely—green with well-watered verdure, fields of beauteous green maize, graceful date palms, and majestic cork trees; and among them were white flat-roofed Moorish houses; but many a black stain on the fair landscape told of the fresh havoc ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to the groom who had brought his horse, and to whom he threw the whip which had made such havoc among the flowers, "lead Black Caesar to the stable again! and hark you! when I bid you bring him out in the early morning another time, lead him to me unbridled and unsaddled, with only a halter on his head, that I may ride as a clown, not ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... presence, for when the girls left the out-room and trooped up to Mary's chamber, they grew cheerful as birds again; and it was delightful to see them aiding each other in the arrangement of the little finery which was intended to make terrible havoc among ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... usage had made havoc with my tailormade clothes, neither time nor the elements seemed to affect the personal appearance of my big companion; his buckskin suit was apparently as clean and fresh as it was on the day I first met him. There was ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... repast, the guest again reverted to parts of Don Benito's story, begging further particulars here and there. He inquired how it was that the scurvy and fever should have committed such wholesale havoc upon the whites, while destroying less than half of the blacks. As if this question reproduced the whole scene of plague before the Spaniard's eyes, miserably reminding him of his solitude in a cabin where before he had had so many friends and officers round him, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... fingered it, Then clasped it round his waist to try the fit, Irresolutely dallying with temptation, Till conscience grew too weak for inclination; For at the last he threw one wandering glance Out at the casement, and the merry dance Of sparkling sunbeams on the fields of snow Wrought havoc in his wavering heart; and so, Repeating to himself one word: "Life, life!" He took the token from the ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis

... results, been cleared up by means of experimental investigations, and efficient modes of prevention deduced from the data so obtained; but the terrible agency of the parasitic fungi and of the infinitesimally minute microbes, which work far greater havoc among plants and animals, has been brought to light. The 'particulate' or 'germ' theory of disease, as it is called, long since suggested, has obtained a firm foundation, in so far as it has been proved to be true in respect of sundry epidemic ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley

... him very well versed in the history and theory of the drama; but there were other times when his ignorance seemed almost creative in that direction. He had apparently no feeling for values; he would want a good effect used, without regard to the havoc it made of the whole picture, though doubtless if it could have been realized to him, he would have abhorred it as thoroughly as Maxwell himself. He would come over from Manchester one day with a notion for the play so bad that it almost made Maxwell shed tears; ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... was no doing any work, Donal was out with two of the men, wading here and there where the water was not too deep, enjoying the wonder of the strange looks and curious conjunctions of things. None of them felt much of dismay at the havoc around them: beyond their chests with their Sunday clothes and at most two clean shirts, neither of the men had anything to lose worth mentioning; and for Donal, he would gladly have given even his books for such ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... to fire the gun effectively at such close range, he reversed it and created bloody havoc, using the butt as a club. Two skulls cracked sharply under its impact and as he fought, Mike saw Nicko go down. He ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis

... stepped out from the open French window on to the lawn was certainly no longer little, but a tall, graceful young lady. There was, however, still some trace in her roguish mouth and dancing eyes of the smaller Barbara who had wrought such havoc among her enemies by firing six peas at ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... the doctrine which he volunteers to teach the world. A married man can only be blamed for volunteering the doctrine. No blame can possibly attach to the wife who defends the interest of the family to the extent of working havoc with ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... her cousin, but she had anticipated such scenes as they had witnessed, inasmuch as her year of training as nurse had prepared her for them. She had also been a close student of the daily press and from her reading had gleaned a knowledge of the terrible havoc wrought by this great war. Had Patsy not given way, perhaps Beth might have done so herself, and really it was Maud Stanton who bore the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne

... Aylward, after a long pull at his blackjack. "There were some six thousand of us, with the prince and his knights, and the feather-bed upon a sutler's mule in the centre. We made great havoc in Touraine, until we came into Romorantin, where I chanced upon a gold chain and two bracelets of jasper, which were stolen from me the same day by a black-eyed wench from the Ardennes. Mon Dieu! there are some folk who have no fear of Domesday in them, and no sign of grace ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... army. But the fleet has not been able to fall in with the English, and has done nothing at all. It is a campaign lost, and which has cost a great deal of money. What is still more afflicting is, that disease has broken out on board the ships, and has caused great havoc; and the dysentery, which is raging as an epidemic in Brittany and Normandy, has attacked the land force also, which was intended to embark for England ... "I greatly fear," she proceeds, "that these misfortunes of ours will render the English difficult to ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... the interference of the peace officers restored some degree of order. The havoc, however, that had been made among dresses and decorations put an end to all farther acting for that day. The battle over, the next thing was to inquire why it was begun; a common question among politicians, after a ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... he had dared to investigate his own pantries; but under the spur of Miss Arminster's necessities he achieved prodigies of valour, even breaking into that holy of holies, his sister's jam-closet. The little actress aided and abetted him, creating havoc among jars of sardines, olives, and caviare. And then, while they were in the midst of their midnight orgy, a figure appeared before them—a figure clad in an indescribable dressing-gown and ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... Hepenthal, a schoolboy, seventeen years of age, who was on his way to Bellefonte from his home at East Liberty, Pa., on the evening of the flood, stood quietly among the passengers on the express train, as they crowded to view the terrible havoc done by the flood. As the flood reached the train, at Sang Hollow, a small frame house came pitching down the mad tide, an eddy floated it in, near to the train, so close that the wailing cries of an infant were heard, piercing their way through the roar. Charles Hepenthal's heart was ...
— True Stories of Wonderful Deeds - Pictures and Stories for Little Folk • Anonymous

... is plunged into difficulties from which all its efforts are insufficient to rescue it. The inhabitants of that fair portion of the Western Hemisphere seem obstinately bent on pursuing the work of inward havoc. If they fall into a momentary repose from the effects of exhaustion, that repose prepares them for a fresh state of frenzy. When I consider their condition, which alternates between misery and crime, I should be inclined to believe that despotism itself would ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... its result, for it completed in Mr. George Powler's bosom the havoc which her face and voice had wrought. He pressed her to sing again, beat time with his large hand and badly groomed head, and was enthusiastic in his praises and seemed so disappointed when she refused, ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... impossible to relate the havoc they made there, burning all before them. When they left Newfoundland they sailed for the West Indies, and from thence to the Island Descada, it being judged the most convenient place, at that time of the year, to meet ...
— Pirates • Anonymous

... throng, and I would not say for certain, but at this late date I am inclined to believe that I saw Ralph Drake, who came in my way with a storm of curses, raising himself sorely from a pool of mud, which must have worked havoc with his velvets, and my Lord Estes struggling forth from a thorny rose bush at the gate, with much rending of precious laces. Then I, convict though I was, yet having, when authorised by the very conditions of my servitude, that resolution ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... part worthy of the better qualities of his race, justifying the words of Louis Blanc, "None but the dead come back." To absolve him is impossible, for we know, better than his persecutors, how he intrigued to recover uncontrolled authority by bringing havoc and devastation upon the people over whom he reigned. The crowning tragedy is not that which Paris witnessed, when Santerre raised his sword, commanding the drums to beat, which had been silenced by the first word of the dying speech; it is that Lewis XVI. met his fate with inward ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... worn bird of Freedom had furled o'er our land The shattered wings, pierced by the despot's rude hand, And stout hearts were vowing, 'mid havoc and strife, To Liberty, fortune, fame, ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford

... poor Dotty nearly cried to see the havoc naughty little Genie had wrought. One pillow cover was torn and another had a black mark from the sole of ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells

... in the dark, we saw the distant flickering forest fires crawling here and there like incandescent snakes along or up the mountain-side: these are caused by the igniting of the grass, shrubs, and undergrowth by the natives, the flames not unfrequently spreading and playing havoc among the finest trees ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... croaked in the blackness beyond the veranda rail; the air smelled of rain. All growing things seemed to have ceased living; the air was heavy and laden with a resinous, dreamy vapour—magnetic, intoxicating. Such a night plays havoc with some women. Under these stifled conditions she is no longer normal; she becomes weak, pliable—she no longer reasons; she craves excitement, deceit, misadventure, confession—quarrels—jealousy—love—stringing their nerves to a tension and breeding ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... to skin and bone, but the knee itself was swollen with inflammation. He bathed it with some water, mixed with vinegar and herbs, then drew down the deer- skin shirt at the child's shoulder, and did the same with it. Both shoulder and knee bore the marks of teeth—where a huge wild cat had made havoc—and the body had ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... each side and cemented with gypsum. In extensive mines, however, these supports and linings are too weak, and not infrequently, as a result, the galleries and caverns give way, occasionally causing considerable havoc among the miners. Sulphur is found from the surface to a depth of 150 meters. The difficulties met with in operating mines are numerous, and among the greatest in this category are water, land slides, irregularity of seam, deleterious ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... it into the symbol of all sin, and in its manifestation revolved the aspects of sin as a presence in the soul after the act,—the broken law disturbing life's external harmonies but working a worse havoc within, mining all with corruption there, while it infects with disease whatever approaches it from without. It is by its moral universality that the romance takes hold of the imagination; the scarlet letter becomes only ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... during the afternoon, a certain amount of risk seemed to attend the journey. There was nothing to prevent the enemy from cutting the line at any point in the hilly country between Ladysmith and Pieter's Station, while even a small hostile force could have played havoc with the crowded trucks. ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... again! And the havoc did not slack, Till a feeble cheer the Dane, To our cheering sent us back;— Their shots along the deep slowly boom:— Then cease—and all is wail, As they strike the shattered sail; Or, in ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... smoke, and the dislocation of big stones which had withstood the disintegrating effect of many centuries of sun power, telling the Forward Observing Officer that his gunners were well on the target and that to live in that havoc the Turks must seek the shelter of vaults cut deep down in the rock by masons of old. No enemy could delay our progress from that shell-torn spot. Lighter guns searched other positions and whiffs of shrapnel kept Turks from their business. There are green patches ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... but ill-chosen word Has wrought great havoc with men's souls, Has chilled the hearts ambition stirred And held the pass to splendid goals. Great dreams have faded and been lost, Fine youth by it been sadly marred As plants beneath a withering frost, Because men thought ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest

... realizing. His domestic achievements are not remarkable, his administration being one in which movements came to a head rather than one in which much was initiated. He might have cut the war short by two years and saved the world much havoc, if he had begun to fight when the Lusitania was sunk. Once in the war he saw his country small and himself large; he did not conceive of the nation as winning the war by sending millions of men to France; he saw himself as winning ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... Westgothland alone four hundred and sixty-six priests. The inhabitants of Iceland and Greenland found in the coldness of their inhospitable climate no protection against the southern enemy who had penetrated to them from happier countries. The plague wrought great havoc among them. In Denmark and Norway, however, people were so occupied with their own misery that the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... to youth and youthful trees putting on a greater air of maturity than they had before. Coming back in spring you are apt to sorrow over the wrecks which the winter has wrought. Last winter's gales and deep snows, and more than all the ice storms, have left havoc behind them whereby you may trace their durance and their intensity. Tall birches whose resiliency never before failed them were so bowed beneath these storm burdens that they still remain with upper branches sweeping the ground, like white slaves sculptured in graceful but profound obeisance ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... was closed, making the air hot and stuffy; yet, Peter asked himself, how was such a condition to be avoided in a place where it was evident that even the tiniest draught must create instant havoc? This room which Peter and Nat surveyed was thick with flying white particles that were being whirled into space from rapidly turning emery wheels. The workmen who were busy buffing the flesh side of split skins in order to get the rough surface required for a suede finish ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett

... conscience reproach me, for suffering such active talents as mine to lie concealed and unknown; being as they are capable of acquiring renown so high. When in Italy, having even there, in that land of artifice, rendered myself the superior of all competitors, I used to glory in the havoc I should make on my return to England. But this the will of fate opposes, at least for the present: and of what duration my honeymoon is to be is more than any ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... officials. The Marquis of Welwyn was celebrated through every stratum of the governing classes for his humane instincts, which were continually fighting against his sense of duty. Unfortunately his sense of duty, which he had inherited from several centuries of ancestors, made havoc among his humane instincts on nearly every occasion of conflict. It was reported that he suffered horribly in consequence. Others also suffered, for he was never known to advise a remission of a sentence of flogging. Certain capital sentences he had commuted, but he did not commute Daniel Povey's. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... Earth's magnetic field from the solar wind of charged particles escaping the sun, unfortunately occupied the twenty-four hour orbit, and, as their orbit expanded and contracted under the influence of the shifting magnetic field and solar flares, could produce tremendous havoc even in automatic equipment, so that it had been deemed economically impractical to set up the originally-postulated three satellites in stationary twenty-four ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond

... violent hurricane, attended with peals of thunder and lurid flashes of lightning, lasted during the whole of the day and evening. The wind tore up the trees by the roots, blew down our outhouses, made terrible havoc in our garden, and threatened to tumble our hut ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... propelled by oars and sails on a single mast. They carried about a score of armed men and were very well and stoutly built. I suppose them to have been something like a modern man-o'-war cutter. They played havoc with the frail canoes. Their solid construction, their higher free-board, that is, the height they were above the water-line, the armor of their crews and the fact that the wind happened to be favorable and they {196} could sail ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... a measure, harden to her work, grow callously accustomed to rising early and working late. Always her feet were sore at night, aching intolerably. Hot food, sharp knives, and a glowing stove played havoc with her hands. Always she rose in the morning heavy-eyed and stiff-muscled. Youth and natural vigor alone kept her from breaking down, and to cap the strain of toil, she was soul-sick with the ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... income is ample, when your children are healthy and merry and hopeful,—in looking on to Future Years. The more happy you are, the more there is of awe in the thought how frail are the foundations of your earthly happiness,—what havoc may be made of them by the chances of even a single day. It is no wonder that the solemnity and awfuluess of the Future have been felt so much, that the languages of Northern Europe have, as I dare say you know, no ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... whose progress is never arrested, by one sweeping blast from the heavens; which walks peacefully and sullenly through the length and breadth of the land, breathing poison into every heart, and carrying havoc into every home, enervating all that is strong, defacing all that is beautiful, and casting its blight over the fairest and happiest scenes of human life—and which, from day to day, and from year to ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... ransacked the king's palace. To make a long story short, the captain, seeing how matters stood, brought Dick's cat ashore, and she soon made the rats and mice scatter. The king was highly delighted when he saw what havoc she made among the rats and mice, and resolved to have her at any price. So he offered a great quantity of gold for her, which, of course, the captain was glad to accept. It was faithfully carried back to Dick, and laid the foundation of his fortune. ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger

... respectful manner, And all the honours which he paid the grave, And thought on cities, where e'en cemeteries, Bestrew'd with all the emblems of mortality, Are not protected from the drunken insolence Of wassailers profane, and wanton havoc. Grant, Heaven, that here my pilgrimage may close! Yet, if this be denied, where'er my bones May lie—or in the city's crowded bounds, Or scatter'd wide o'er the huge sweep of waters, Or left a prey on some deserted shore To the rapacious cormorant,—yet still, (For why should sober reason ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... lonesome without his petite mignonne. Mind, you are hereby invited and commanded to dine every evening with papa, and also Father Letheby. Love to St. Dolores! Tell Mrs. Darcy I inquired for her. What havoc she would make of ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... kind, Light of his hearth and mistress of his home, Sole spot where peace and joy could still be found— Woman herself cast down, despised was made Slave to man's luxury and brutal lust. Then war was rapine, havoc, needless blood, Infants impaled before their mothers' eyes, Women dishonored, mutilated, slain, Parents but spared to see their children die. Then peace was but a faithless, hollow truce, With plots and counter-plots; the dagger's point And poisoned cup instead of open war; And ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... where the shade was grateful, a spot beside the river's brink where the fish used to bite. Each one says, "Don't you remember?" Each one seeks his nest like a home-coming swallow. Does it still hold together? What havoc has been made by the winter's winds, and the rain, and the frost? Will it welcome us, ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin

... the cloud on his horizon spread and darkened, gathered sinister shape of storm, harboring lightning and havoc. It was the cloud in his mind, the foreshadowing of his soul, the prophetic sense of like to like. Where he ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey

... king's departure to conspire with Lord Scrope and Sir Thomas Grey to proclaim the Earl of March king. The plot however was discovered and the plotters beheaded before the king sailed in August for the Norman coast. His first exploit was the capture of Harfleur. Dysentery made havoc in his ranks during the siege, and it was with a mere handful of men that he resolved to insult the enemy by a daring march like that of Edward upon Calais. The discord however on which he probably reckoned for security vanished before the actual appearance ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... had expected. At least eight of the team had looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather-hunting. But Adair and Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy, especially Psmith, who had taken six wickets, his slows playing havoc ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... no material return, in the clinics of the poor. And how often, in reading our newspapers, do we learn that some medical scientist, by patient work, and often at the risk of life and health, has triumphed over a scourge which has played havoc with humanity throughout the ages! Typhoid has been conquered, and infant paralysis; gangrene and tetanus, which have taken such toll of the wounded in Flanders and France; yellow fever has been stamped out in the tropics; hideous lesions are now healed by a system of drainage. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the opening of 1689 than Tyrconnell threw off the mask. A flag was hoisted over Dublin Castle with the words embroidered on its folds "Now or Never." The signal called every Catholic to arms. The maddened Irishmen flung themselves on the plunder which their masters had left and in a few weeks havoc was done, the French envoy told Lewis, which it would ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green

... it did before the summer heat by sickness and desertion, it may be imagined how that of the French dwindled. Their terrible sufferings could be ended only by a battle. Heat, dust, and drought wrought havoc in their columns; the pitiless northern sun left men and animals with little resisting power; the flying inhabitants devastated their fields, the horses and oxen gorged themselves on the half-rotten ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... said the parson, "played rather havoc with the house. The poor fellow had a dreadful struggle, I was told. You can, unfortunately, expect nothing else these days, when livings have come down so terribly in value! He was a married ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Have borne, he gathers; nor iron rule of laws, Nor maddened Forum have his eyes beheld, Nor archives of the people. Others vex The darksome gulfs of Ocean with their oars, Or rush on steel: they press within the courts And doors of princes; one with havoc falls Upon a city and its hapless hearths, From gems to drink, on Tyrian rugs to lie; This hoards his wealth and broods o'er buried gold; One at the rostra stares in blank amaze; One gaping sits transported by the cheers, The ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... repression. Now that the repressionists were invading the realm of literature to ply their trade, he saw how that the Negro was to be attacked in the quiet of the AMERICAN HOME, the final arbiter of so many of earth's most momentous questions, and he trembled at the havoc vile misrepresentations would play before the truth could ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... came upon John Dale's vision, and he started back, fearing that his weariness and heavy heart were playing havoc with his senses. Having seen smoke rising from the chimney of the hut, he had left his horse and sled a short distance away, and ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... which has played such havoc with the old style of manufacture, proceeds on totally different lines. Briefly stated, it depends on the fact that if a solution of salt in water is mixed with bicarbonate of ammonium, under proper conditions, a reaction takes place by which the salt, or chloride of sodium, is converted ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various

... a better idea of what the individual really is, by examining sisters and brothers; and in the second place, there will be less danger of a childless marriage, since it is already proved that the individual comes of a fertile stock. Francis Galton showed clearly the havoc wrought in the English peerage, by marriages with heiresses (an heiress there being nearly always an only child). Such women were childless in a much larger proportion than ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... I were in a delirium of joy or a delirium of misery I was in no wise sure. The delirium was certain; but I found that afternoon how true a thing it is that extremes meet. Great joy and great sorrow are not very wide apart in the havoc they work ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray

... gotten over the edge of this shoal when we began to see things—big blue crabs, the kind that can pinch and that play havoc with the fishermen's nets, and impudent little gray crabs, and needle-fish, and small chocolate-colored sharks—nurse sharks, Sam called them—and barracuda from one foot to five feet in length, and whip-rays and sting-rays. It was exceedingly interesting and surprising ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... that, in the interfacings of human lives, events are happening every moment which, although bearing according to present knowledge no possible relation to our own lives, are yet to have an influence on our future and make havoc with our expectations. The train is laid, the fuse is lit, ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... influence upon the mind; and I have little doubt that this was felt, and understood by those true architects who designed and built the noble cathedrals at Durham and elsewhere. But there, as elsewhere, some of our modern so-called "Architects" have made sad havoc with the earliest and most impressive portions of those grand and truly interesting remains, by their "Restorations", as they term it—but ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... trees. Crystal was very fond of this avenue; she liked to sit and watch the play of sunshine upon the stone of the fountain: the melancholy quietude of the place suited her present mood. It was so strange to look on these big evergreen trees and on the havoc caused by weeds and weather on the fine carving of the fountain, and to think of their going on here year after year for the past twenty years, while that hideous revolution had devastated the whole country, while men had murdered each other, slaughtered women and ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... the bird, "but what makes me fear most are the field-mice and the snakes. They make great havoc in our nests when they discover them. Many a tiny fledgling has been swallowed by a great creeping, crawling snake. Many a beautiful egg has been eaten ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets

... and processes of life would be divested of their secrecy and their irresponsibility; but the effect of further investigation is to reveal that life is infinitely more complex than was supposed, and that the end is as dim as ever; though science did for a while make havoc of the stereotyped imaginative systems of faith and belief, so that men supposed that beauty was but an accidental emphasis of law, and that the love of it could be traced ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... now fired a broadside into her antagonist, making fearful havoc, and killing Admiral D'Avila. The commanders-in-chief of both contending fleets had thus fallen at the very beginning of the battle. While the St. Augustine was engaged in deadly encounter, yardarm and yardarm, with the AEolus and the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... when we contemplate the seamless robe of Christ rent into more than twain, and dabbled in blood worse than Joseph's coat was when his father said, "Some evil beast hath devoured him"; and although it does seem to us sometimes, as we contemplate the havoc of schisms and strife of sects, as if some convulsion from beneath had shaken down the towers of the New Jerusalem, and streams from the nether fires had coursed down the channels of the river of life. What ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris

... of the Brigadier in not advancing a portion, at any rate, of my regiment to the fort at the time the sepoys broke their ranks and entered the entrenchment. Had he done so, it is probable that not one of the mutineers of the 45th Native Infantry would have escaped, nor would the havoc which afterwards occurred in the cantonment have taken place. But he was an old East India Company's officer, and had served upwards of forty years in the native army, having to the last, like many others at that eventful time, implicit confidence ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... of his money for his grandchildren. It was to be divided among them when the youngest son should arrive at the age of twenty-one—an event which took place, I supposed, while Ben was on his way to India. Desmond and an older son, who resided anywhere except at home, made havoc with the income. As the principal prospectively was theirs, or nearly the whole of it, why should they ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... house to which he by social standing also belonged, he had many chances to seize upon cups, jugs, and dishes. If detected with any thing that he ought not to have had, it was his custom to drop the forbidden toy and toddle off as fast as his unpractised feet would carry him. The havoc which this caused amongst the glass and china was bewildering in a household where tea-sets and dinner-sets had passed from generation to generation, where slapdash, giddy-pated kitchenmaids never came, where Miss Betty washed the best ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... yet at the same time delicate and sensitive nervous organization which is peculiarly susceptible to the effects of opium, from which it draws the vast majority of its victims, and in which it makes its most relentless havoc; with a front brain considerably beyond the average in size and development. My patient's general health, apart from the inevitable disturbances of the drug, has always been fair, and his constitufion, under the same limitations, is a vigorous one. His habit, as ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... indispensable for the supply of winter vegetables, and their importance becomes especially manifest when severe frost has made general havoc in the Kitchen Garden. Then it is seen that the hardier Borecoles are proof against the lowest temperature experienced in these islands; and, while frost leaves the plants unharmed, it improves the tops and side sprouts that are required ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... regular medley, but keep perpetually riding round and shooting into the enemy. And] as they do not count it any shame to run away in battle, they will [sometimes pretend to] do so, and in running away they turn in the saddle and shoot hard and strong at the foe, and in this way make great havoc. Their horses are trained so perfectly that they will double hither and thither, just like a dog, in a way that is quite astonishing. Thus they fight to as good purpose in running away as if they stood and faced the enemy, because ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... all other accidents because it is the last of them. Sometimes it leaps suddenly upon its victims, like a Thug; sometimes it lays a regular siege and creeps upon their citadel during a score of years. And when the business is done, there is sore havoc made in other people's lives, and a pin knocked out by which many subsidiary friendships hung together. There are empty chairs, solitary walks, and single beds at night. Again, in taking away our friends, death does not take them away utterly, but leaves behind a mocking, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... everything upon a last desperate sortie against the advancing things. With his club whistling around his head in crashing blows that wrought murderous havoc in the close-packed hordes, he drove them back for one breathless moment that gave him time to leap forward and snatch ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells

... great havoc is committed among the herds of horses by the jaguars, whose strength is quite sufficient to enable them to drag off one of these animals. Azara caused the body of a horse, which had been recently killed by a jaguar, to be drawn within musket-shot of a ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... once to rejoin our boat, and even this was not done without great difficulty. General Church was also on the shore, and he too was only saved by the sloop which was waiting for him. The Turkish cavalry, after having killed or captured all the advanced party, rushed into the plain and made terrible havoc among the Greeks. Seven hundred of them were killed; and two hundred and forty were taken prisoners. The rest, numbering about two thousand, rushed down towards the sea, and would soon have been all destroyed by the Turkish guns placed on the hills if the fire from the vessels off the coast ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane

... Fort Alexandria, and reached it late in the evening. My unexpected appearance gave my old bourgeois of Two Mountains an agreeable surprise. Having eaten nothing since morning, we made sad havoc ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean

... Hastings and the other sons returned. Then Aslaug prevailed upon her husband to linger by her side and delegate the duty of revenge to his sons. In this battle Ivar made use of his magic to slay Eystein's cow, which could make more havoc than an army of warriors. His brothers, having slain Eystein and raided the country, then sailed off to renew ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber

... unconsciousness of the havoc which the rain had wrought on her lovely black gown, made a smiling ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey

... through which the white background could be distinctly seen until they were closed again by almost superhuman efforts. The volunteer batteries seemed little behind in their practice—their solid shot and bursting shell falling in a perpetual shower and making fearful havoc alternately in the solid masses of the rebels and among the gunners ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... epidemic disease the self-same floating matter has frequently, if not always, mingled with it the special germs which produce the epidemic, being thus enabled to sow pestilence and death over nations and continents—consider all this, and you will come with me to the conclusion that all the havoc of war, ten times multiplied, would be evanescent if compared with the ravages due to ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... Intricate and difficult conditions frequently arise as the result of self-indulgence, out of which there is no exit but by fresh sins. Hence the long train of crimes led by one capital sin towards the goal of its satisfaction, and hence the havoc wrought by its untrammeled working in ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... Picton's division and the same number of the French. The latter commenced the fight by opening fire upon the infantry position, but were too far away to do much harm. Picton's guns got the range of a column of infantry, and created great havoc among them. Darkness put a stop to the fight, but until late at night skirmishes took place between the outposts. A troop of the Seventh Hussars charged and drove back a body of light cavalry, who kept ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... there,—if debts crowd fast upon her, She'll pawn her "virtue" to preserve her "honour." Thrice happy were my art, could I foretell, Cards would be soon abjured by every belle! Yet, I pronounce, who cherish still the vice, And the pale vigils keep of cards and dice—'Twill in their charms sad havoc make, ye fair! Which "rouge" in vain shall labour to repair. Beauties will grow mere hags, toasts wither'd jades, Frightful and ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... in several houses of the nobility. His health broke down, and for a long time he was altogether unfit for work. He had saved a considerable sum of money, but the cost of doctors and the necessaries of a sick man soon played havoc with his little store, and he became reduced to penury and absolute want. For some time he was in the Workhouse, and, being discharged, he was advised to go to the Shelter. He was low in health as well as in circumstances, and broken in spirit, almost despairing. He was lovingly advised to ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... James was announced. She greeted him with a tremulous and fluttering warmth that for a moment embarrassed her visitor, accustomed to the old excess of manner and dignity, wherewith she kept her little world in awe. He saw, too, that the havoc wrought by age and grief had gone forward rapidly since he had ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... coupled with the scanty diffusion of literary taste, destroyed many of the monastic libraries. But, which is stranger and less excusable, even down to the second half of the seventeenth century, down to Aubrey's day, the greatest havoc continued to be made in this way alike among printed books and MSS., the latter being used for all sorts of utilitarian purposes—even as bungs for beer-barrels. In our own period it is immeasurably sadder and more astonishing to learn that, besides the losses arising from casual conflagrations ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... one day by a party of friendly Crow Indians, who stated that the small pox was raging with such awful virulence among the Blackfeet that they were dying by hundreds and thousands. Indeed, the havoc was so dreadful that there was reason to believe the whole ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis

... the Tempest hove in sight, and while Trent and his men had no better expectation than to strike for Honolulu in the boats. Nothing else was notable on deck, save where the loose topsail had played some havoc with the rigging, and there hung, and swayed, and sang in the declining wind, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... and a chosen direction in their life; otherwise their life could not be expedited, nor could anything be useful to it. In other words—and this is a third point at which the philosophy of William James has played havoc with the genteel tradition, while ostensibly defending it—nature must be conceived anthropomorphically and in psychological terms. Its purposes are not to be static harmonies, self-unfolding destinies, the logic of spirit, the spirit of logic, or any other formal method and abstract ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana



Words linked to "Havoc" :   disturbance, mayhem



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com