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Plight   /plaɪt/   Listen
Plight

verb
1.
Give to in marriage.  Synonyms: affiance, betroth, engage.
2.
Promise solemnly and formally.  Synonym: pledge.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Plight" Quotes from Famous Books



... and slay Norouas, who had spoiled his flax. So hasty had he been in setting forth that he had taken no food or money with him, and when evening came he arrived at an inn hungry and penniless. He explained his plight to the hostess, who gave him a morsel of bread and permitted him to sleep in a corner of the stable. In the morning he asked the dame the way to the abode of Norouas, and she conducted him to the foot of a mountain, where she said ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... unsettled. "You are very lucky," replied the King, "that Europe is governed by such princes as you wot of. The King of Spain thinks of nothing but tranquillity. The Archdukes will never move except on compulsion. The Emperor, whom every one is so much afraid of in this matter, is in such plight that one of these days, and before long, he will be stripped of all his possessions. I have news that the Bohemians are ready ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... out, 'Come on board and save the vessel! My crew are all gone!' And indeed she was in a sore plight. ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor

... birch tree, lovers met to plight their vows, and on its smooth bark was often cut the figure of two hearts joined in one. In summer, the forest furnished shade, and in winter warmth from the fire. In the spring time, the new leaves were a wonder, and in autumn the pigs ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis

... she said to-day, until the Lady Barbara is recovered, until Lord Farquhart is free. It will be all that I can do to gain access to her to make my demand for the Lady Barbara's clothes. And she is—she says that she is sick of the whole world. Her cousin's plight, Lord Farquhart's danger, have sickened her of the whole world. It's for her sake that I would free Lord Farquhart. Until Lord Farquhart is released, Judith Ogilvie's mind cannot rest for a single second. So for her sake you must work ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... was so angry that it would have been ludicrous to me had I not been in so desperate plight. His face was convulsed. He clenched his hands, and, for a moment, it seemed that he was about to fall upon me and give me a beating. Then, with an effort, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... scene was enacted, in which the seaman used every means of persuasion known to him to get the girl to give up his brother and plight herself to him. But though alternately distressed and terrified, Barbara had stood her ground, and, gentle and yielding though she appeared to be, neither threats nor vows had had the slightest effect upon her constancy. And then, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... all come from the time when they had to write for nothing or for very little. And here, too, that Spanish proverb holds good, which declares that honor and money are not to be found in the same purse—honora y provecho no caben en un saco. The reason why Literature is in such a bad plight nowadays is simply and solely that people write books to make money. A man who is in want sits down and writes a book, and the public is stupid enough to buy it. The secondary effect of this is ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer

... great battle field and the internecine strife of fighting Africans is in a measure responsible for the plight of the Negro race in the world, as a union of forces could have the better halted alien aggression. But in America the Negro was taught the Gospel of peace. The singing of the American Negro is said to lack the ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... her brother. Roy, despite his plight and the dust which enveloped him, was tight-lipped and defiant. No sign of a breakdown appeared on his features, for which Peggy ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

... was standing farther off, escaped with a few drops, and burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter on beholding our miserable plight. ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... Mother. Happiness at play, And speech of tenderness no speech can say!' 'How learn'd thou art! Twelve honeymoons profane had taught thy docile heart Less than thine Eros, in a summer night!' 'Nay, do not jeer, but help my puzzled plight: Because he loves so marvellously me, And I with all he loves in love must be, How to except myself I do not see. Yea, now that other vanities are vain, I'm vain, since him it likes, of being withal Weak, foolish, ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore

... speedily to gain this shelter, but not before the boat was nearly filled with water, and we were all wet to the skin. At about seven o'clock in the evening we reached Aldea Gallega, shivering with cold and in a most deplorable plight. ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow

... ITALY'S PLIGHT.—But meanwhile, the enemy has struck at Italy, and Italy, reeling under his blows, is clamant for aid. Division after Division hurries off! STRENGTH falls, never again to ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... well enough, but alack for the approaches and the interior! Plunging through mud I reached the door, and, glancing through the window, descried the inevitable pig inside the kitchen. The people—to be just to them—seemed a little fluttered, if not ashamed, of the plight in which I found them. It was quite evident that since the new 80l. house was built not a drop of water had been expended on its interior. The wooden staircase leading to the bedrooms aloft was in such condition ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... effectual one. Do what he would, his domestic sky was likely to be overcast to the end of the day. Thus he brooded, and his resentment gathered force. He craved a means of striking one blow back at the cause of his cheerless plight, while he was still on the scene of his discomfiture. For some minutes no method suggested itself, and ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... and behold I saw a man bearing a burden on his back, walking up and down the Alley in grievous plight; and ever and anon he put his hands into his breeches pockets, as if in search of something, but drew out nothing. Then he turned his pockets inside out, and cried—"Wo is me! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... was their plight, it was no sadder than the plight of many of their class. The horrors of a protracted war had visited with equal severity the dwelling places of the rich and the poor. It was not a question of the provision of the sinews of war; tax had been enacted of all classes ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... abruptly, as she was about to leave the room, "come here. I am strong now, and I want to talk to you. Now tell me all about it. How did I get into this plight? And how ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... never got so punished for a joke in his life before, and he took very good care not to let his sense of the ridiculous put him in such a plight again, as for more than two mortal hours he suffered all the tortures of a condemned criminal; as he said, he would rather ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson

... Novels." In one of these he shows us the illustrious Dominie at the moment, when reaching over to gather a water-lily, he falls souse into the Slough of Lochend, in which he forthwith became bogged up to the middle, his plight drawing from him of course his favourite ejaculation of amazement. By the assistance of some women the luckless Dominie was extracted from his position, justifying the remark of one of his assistants, that "the laird might as weel trust the care of his bairn to a potato-bogle." Which was ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... under review, turning the white between his thumb and forefinger. Unfortunately he was on bad terms with some old friends who would once have taken pity on him in such a plight. He had lampooned them in verses; he had beaten and cheated them; and yet now, when he was in so close a pinch, he thought there was at least one who might perhaps relent. It was a chance. It was worth trying at least, and he would ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... way of the Gentiles, and into any of the cities of the Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel;" Matt. x. 5, 6; chap. xxiii. 37; but go rather to them, for they were in the most fearful plight. ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan

... English at a distance, and the father could neither drive nor coax his men to the sticking point of courage to scale palisades in such an unnatural war. Claude de La Tour was now in an unenviable plight. He dare not go back to France a traitor. He could not go back to England, having failed to win the day. The son built him a dwelling outside the fort; and there this famous courtier of two great nations, with his noble wife, retired to pass the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke Gently o'er the accustom'd oak. —Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among I woo, to hear thy even-song; ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... of a boarding-house table! Really it was too much; and this girl, of whom he had begun to think rather well—this girl doubtless mimicked his disconsolate tones and his chattering teeth, and made all manner of fun of his sorry plight. ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... and hour after hour, the little cavalcade crept toward Chattanooga, Grant's face becoming more haggard and furrowed with pain at every step, but showing a fixed determination to reach his goal at any cost. On every side signs of the desperate plight of the besieged garrison were only too apparent. Thousands of carcasses of starved horses and mules lay beside the road amid broken-down wagons, abandoned provisions and all the wreckage of ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... that sore plight of ruined man Christ's pity could not lightly scan: Nor let God's building nobly wrought Ingloriously be ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

... night—Dec. 27, 1836—is Pollard's graphic picture of the Devonport mail snowed up at Amesbury. Six horses could not move it, and Guard F. Feecham was in parlous plight. Pollard's companion picture of the Liverpool mail in the snow near St. Alban's on the same night is equally interesting. Guard James Burdett fared little better than his comrade on ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs

... understand his case. He snatches at the slightest ray of hope. He is in despair from the beginning to the end. No prison has the trained men who, with intelligence and sympathy, should know and watch and help him in his plight. No state would spend the money necessary to employ enough attendants and aids with the learning and skill necessary to build him up. Money is freely spent on the prosecution from the beginning to the end, but ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... when it was night, So sad was their plight, The sun it went down, And the moon gave no light. They sobbed and they sighed, and they bitterly cried, And the poor little things, they lay down ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown

... called he said Tom could sit up for a little while. Two days later Tom was well enough to be talked to, and his father and Mr. Jackson went over all the details of the matter. Mr. Damon, who had returned home, came to see his friend as soon as he heard of his plight, and was also a member of the ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton

... iron bands they bound his hands. That sore unworthy plight Might well express his helplessness, doomed never more to fight. Again, from cincture down to knee, long bolts of iron he bore, Which signified the knight should ride on ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... gives me, doth my lover, Kisses with each breath - I shall one day throw him over, And plight troth with Death. ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... drive away the flock, Could he the Shepherd's voice but mock. He thought undoubtedly he could. He tried: the tone in which he spoke, Loud echoing from the wood, The plot and slumber broke; Sheep, dog, and man awoke. The Wolf, in sorry plight, In hampering coat bedight, Could neither ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... have spoke a hundred times; but he is very sluggish, and too negligent ever to do well at his trade I doubt), and having lately considered with my wife very much of the inconvenience of my going in no better plight, we did resolve of putting me into a better garb, and, among other things, to have a good velvet cloake; that is, of cloth lined with velvet and other things modish, and a perruque, and so I sent him and her out to buy me velvet, and I to the Exchange, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... any gods at all," said Yasmini piously, "they will consider our plight. I think this is a vengeance on me because I said I will leave my maids behind. I will not leave them! Hasamurti—you and the others make ready for ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... horrid waves, these gusts that sweep the whirling deep; What reck they of our evil plight, who on the shore securely ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... I see you know, now. It was I whom you heard playing, that first day. It was I, touched by your plight in that forlorn and dusty barracks, who gave you some slight relief. It was easy enough for me to cut across to Geddes's house, reach in through his kitchen window, lift his tray, and escape through the ragged hedges while his cook's broad back was turned. Achmet ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... outlook here is also sad. One cannot get a bucket of coal. The stores and dealers have none. The schools are closing, as there is no coal. Soon everybody will be in the same plight. Neither coal nor vegetables can be bought. Holland is sending us nothing more, and we have none. We get 3-1/2 lb. of potatoes per person. In the next few days we shall only have swedes to ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... through, and the masts and yards were badly wounded in many places. Judging by the crashing sound which came back from the French ship after each broadside fired by the Falcon, and the white splinters which flew from every part of her upper works, she was in a still worse plight. Still her crew kept up a hot fire. The young midshipmen, and even others, might possibly have begun to wish that ...
— The Two Shipmates • William H. G. Kingston

... arms to make them bleed; and with such horrible actions, partly by prayers, and partly with lunatic curses, they move or terrify the ignorant country-folks into giving them alms. This poor fellow was such a one; and the king seeing him in so wretched a plight, with nothing but a blanket about his loins to cover his nakedness, could not be persuaded but that the fellow was some father who had given all away to his daughters, and brought himself to that pass: for nothing he thought could bring a man to such wretchedness ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... this mode pursued I see nothing to prevent the capture of the five or six ships of the enemy's van. The two or three ships of the enemy's rear must either bear up or wear; and in either case, although they would be in a better plight probably than our two van ships (now the rear), yet they would be separated and at a distance to leeward, so as to give our ships time to refit. And by that time I believe the battle would, from the judgment of the admiral and captains, be over with the rest of them. Signals from ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... can we find her?" wailed Melvina. "I cannot go up the slope barefooted and in my petticoat. What would my father say if he met me in such a plight? He tells me often to remember to set a good example to other children. And I would be ashamed indeed to be ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis

... evil wrought by civilization, of curses heaped on a strange, simple people by men who sought to exploit them or to mold them to another pattern, who destroyed their customs and their happiness and left them to die, apathetic, wretched, hardly knowing their own miserable plight. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... O, lady, weep no more! lest I give cause To be suspected of more tenderness Than doth become a man. I will remain The loyal'st husband that did e'er plight troth ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... unarmed, and Herbert in no better plight; their hunting weapons were in the adjoining room, and Rupert seemed to bar the way. I have said that the king was no coward, yet I think, that the sight of Rupert, bringing back the memory of his torments in the dungeon, half cowed him; for he shrank back crying, "You!" The hound, ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... to speak with her by stealth, who dogged her footsteps and hung on the skirts of her party, were Tignonville—her lover, who at his own request had been escorted to the Arsenal before their departure from Paris—then her plight was a sorry one. For what woman, wedded as she had been wedded, could think otherwise than indulgently of his persistence? And yet, lover and husband! What peril, what shame the words had often spelled! At the thought only she trembled and her colour ebbed. She saw, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... plight, Through heavy jungle-mire, These two came later every night To warm them at the fire, Until the Captain said one day: 'O seaman good and kind, To save thyself now come away And ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... on our journey from another junk; it was cheerfully given. Our towrope had chafed through, and we were in a difficulty, attempting to pass a bad rapid among the rocks, when a large junk was hauled bodily past us, and, seeing our plight, hooked on to us and towed us with them out of danger. On this night we anchored under the Sentinel Rock (Shih-pao-chai), perhaps the most remarkable landmark on the river. From two hundred to three hundred feet high, ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... not to me of savages From Afric's burning sun, No savage e'er could rend my heart As, Jessy, thou hast done. But Jessy's lovely hand in mine, A mutual faith to plight, Not even to view the heavenly choir Would be so ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring; But they dared not touch us again, for they fear'd that we still could sting, So they watch'd what the end would be. And we had not fought them in vain, But in perilous plight were we, Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain, And half of the rest of us maim'd for life In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife; And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... stupidity was one of fear rather than disdain; she could not look Novikoff in the face, but trembled before him, like a slave. Her plight was pitiable as that of a helpless bird whose wings have been clipped, and ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... horse was exhausted, dismounted, and continued to impel his arrows against the enemy from behind his shield. But Rakush brooked not the dreadful storm, and galloped off unconscious that his master himself was in as bad a plight. When Zuara saw the noble animal, riderless, crossing the plain, he gasped for breath, and in an agony of grief hurried to the fatal spot, where he found Rustem desperately hurt, and the blood flowing copiously from every ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... miserable transformation it is hardly possible to imagine. The clothes hung loosely about her, in forlorn dowdyness. She felt that she was ridiculous. All grace was gone, all beauty. It was distressing to witness her mortified plight. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... that he was to lie there that night, seeing that as yet we had no more beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nehring the forest ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her little god-child having lain on it that morning; and she could nowise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why not? she blushed scarlet and began to cry, and would not show herself again the whole ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold

... black-and-blue spot on his forehead and a bad cut on his upper lip. His joy at seeing her and the tearful cry he gave as he threw his arm's about her neck quite overcame Mrs. Burke, and caused her eyes to grow dim. She was angry at the plight in which she found him, and said some hard things to the woman who had promised to look after the child, at which the latter grew angry in turn, and told her to stay at home and take care of the brat herself, or put him in ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... says be true, father will be only too glad to help an old brother-officer in misfortune, and be sorry to see him in such a plight." ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... heard of it. Yuan Shih-kai had the priceless opportunity of studying them at close range and soon made up his mind about certain things. When the storm burst, pretending to see nothing but mad fanatics in those who, realizing the plight of their country, had adopted the war-cry "Blot out the Manchus and the foreigner," he struck at them fiercely, driving the whole savage horde head-long into the metropolitan province of Chihli. There, seduced by the Manchus, they suddenly changed the inscription on their flags. ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... of the exordium will differ, therefore, as the subject may require. For the mind of the judge is not always the same, so that, according to the time and circumstances, we must declare our mournful plight, appear modest, tart, grave, insinuating; move to mercy and exhort to diligence. As the nature of these is different, so their composition must be conducted ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser

... provide himself with —what above all he wanted, and what might have been so easily obtained through negotiation with the revolted Numidian tribes —a good light cavalry. He thus wantonly brought himself and his army into a plight similar to that which formerly befell Agathocles in his desperate ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... to the sloping hillside. The Gaunt Rocks had saved their lives. Now they must reach Little Tupper and water if they would have their horses live. Intolerable, frightful thirst was already swelling their own lips and they knew that the plight of the ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... this critical time as well as later when they were breathing normally again that the poor eclopes beyond the barrier were without shelter in the autumn rains and altogether in desperate plight; but it was only now and again that a few found time to pay them a hasty visit and cheer them with those little gifts so dear to the imaginative heart of the French soldier. Sooner or later, of course, the Government would have taken ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... harbor defenses unless these included mines—of whose absence Dewey was at the moment unaware. If, however, the Spanish commander could unite the strength of his vessels and that of the coast defenses, Dewey might find it impossible to destroy the Spanish fleet. In that case, the plight of the American squadron would be precarious, if its ultimate self-destruction or internment did ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... on the 8th, Mr Pickersgill returned, together with his companions, in no very good plight, having been at the head of the arm he was sent to explore, which he judged to extend in to the eastward about eight miles. In it is a good anchoring-place, wood, fresh water, wild fowl, and fish. At nine o'clock I set out to explore the ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... of my stay in that part of the country, I never failed to urge my cousin to narrate the events which had brought Coote-down to its present melancholy plight. But it was not till I called to take leave of her, perhaps for ever, that she complied. On that occasion, she placed in my hands a neatly-written manuscript in her own handwriting, which she said contained all the particulars I required. ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... talked more than any one at table. Among other things he began to maintain that men, like dogs, can be divided into the short-tailed and the long-tailed. People are short-tailed, he said, either from birth or through their own fault. The short-tailed are in a sorry plight; nothing succeeds with them—they have no confidence in themselves. But the man who has a long furry tail is happy. He may be weaker and inferior to the short-tailed; but he believes in himself; he displays his tail and every one admires it. And this is a fit subject for wonder; the tail, ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev

... When the betrothal had been made at her uncle's urgent insistence that she accept Captain Yeovil's suit, it had been a great match for her, for the d'Aumeniers were impoverished exiles, while the Yeovils were a rich family and of a line almost as long as her own. It had been easy enough to plight her troth to the young Englishman at first, but since she had seen Marteau, she realized that it would not be easy to keep that engagement. Fortunately, Captain Yeovil had been on service in Spain and the South of France with the Duke of Wellington's army, and only a few ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... of Madra, with his wondrous skill and might, Faltering, on his knees descending, fell in sad inglorious plight, ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous

... reminded him) I never saw a man worse scared. The woman had actually thrown off her jacket and stood up in a loose under-bodice that left her arms free—and exceedingly red and brawny arms they were. How he had come into this plight I could guess as little as what the issue was like to be, when in the gateway there appeared my uncle and Mr. Knox, and close at their heels a rabble of men and women arm-in-arm, headed by a red-nosed clergyman with an immense white favour pinned ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... vigor can I myself procure my sustenance? Whence?—Why, O Creon, dost thou thus utterly kill me? for kill me thou wilt, if thou shalt cast me out of the land. Yet will I not appear base, stretching my hands around thy knees, for I can not belie my former nobleness, not even though my plight is miserable. ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... was Thorkel's sardonic voice that brought the Lady of Northampton back to herself. "Now, is this how you take the sight of your own handiwork? Or is it because you regret that the King is not in this plight? One mouthful and no more has she had of the blood of ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... not for a moment leave him in the miserable plight of acquiescing in sin because he knows he is still a sinner. If he were merely going by a theory, it might be so. But he is going by the Lord Jesus Christ; he is using HIM, daily and hourly, as not only his always abasing standard, but as "all his salvation, and all his desire"; as the ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule

... reputation if it was said that he gave his men a taste for cruelty and riot, so he suppressed their indignation. They obeyed him, too, for now that civil war was done with, there was less insubordination on foreign service. Their thoughts were now distracted by the pitiful plight of the legions who had been summoned from the country of the Mediomatrici.[434] Miserably conscious of their guilt, they stood with eyes rooted to the ground. When the armies met, they raised no cheer: they had no answer for those who offered comfort and encouragement: ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... stir the soul, which ought only barely to follow and assist the body, without mixing in the affair. But have I not reason to hold that these precepts, which, indeed, in my opinion, are somewhat over strict, only concern a body in its best plight; and that in a body broken with age, as in a weak stomach, 'tis excusable to warm and support it by art, and by the mediation of the fancy to restore the appetite and cheerfulness it ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... found their thirsty hopes fully realized. All round the lake were in numerable hare warrens, which the tread of the mighty monsters crushed unmercifully, maiming and mangling the helpless inhabitants. When the elephants had withdrawn, the poor hares met together in terrible plight, to consult upon the course which they should take when their enemies returned. One wise hare undertook the task of driving the ponderous herd away. This he did by going alone to the elephant king, ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... though he never swears, Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs, Though meekness plants his backward-sloping hat, And non-resistance ties his white cravat, Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine, Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's chest, Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear That chase from port the maddened buccaneer, Feels the same comfort while his acrid words Turn the sweet milk of kindness into ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... breaking on board from every direction. The deck-houses were washed away and the decks were filled with water, which began to find an entrance to the 'tween-decks, where the poor soldiers were battened down. In this plight it was necessary to get the remnant of the topsail secure, and if possible get a new sail in its place, so as to steady the ship. The second officer was ordered to get the sailors and do this, but he soon ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights

... for all Alex's anxiety to set me free, he paid little enough attention to my plight. He jumped through the opening into the secret room, and picked ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... a manly frank way, that was far from being unpleasant to his gentle listener, whose inclinations, for a few minutes, blinded her to the resolutions already made on principle. So urgent was her suitor, indeed, that she should solemnly plight her faith to him, ere he sailed, that a soft illusion came over the mind of one as affectionate as Mary, and she was half-inclined to believe her previous determination was unjustifiable and obdurate. But the head of one of her high principles, and clear ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... the deserted street, lighted only by the brilliant moon. They began now to feel that their position was critical, and Bert, who more easily yielded to the depressing effects of circumstances, bemoaned his fate and all the series of events that had led up to their present unenviable plight. He was inclined to blame Harry ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich

... came tripping forward to the bridge with a walk like a bird's. At the sight of Tilda and Arthur Miles, who in their plight had made no effort to hide, he drew himself ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Mexia, leaving El Dorado for the present less gilded plight of the Spanish: "Fifty thousand ducats! Holy Virgin! Are we Incas of Peru—Atahualpas who can fill a hall with ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... the plight our War Office was in re the supply of small arms ammunition at the beginning of the South African War. Early in 1899 I received two orders, large in their way, totalling some five million rounds, for the .303 magazine rifle, from Sydney and ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... if I thought it could be in a woman (As, if it can, I will presume in you) To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love, To keep her constancy in plight and youth, Outliving beauties outward with a mind That doth renew swifter than blood decays: Or that persuasion could but thus convince me, That my integrity and truth to you Might be confronted with the match and weight Of such a winnowed purity in love— How were I then uplifted! But, ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt

... name of an eminent counsel is not often blessed in this ungrateful world. For Fiddlestick, Q.C., who, it will be remembered, was one of the leaders for the defendants, had been watching his unfortunate antagonist, till, realising how sorry was his plight, a sense of pity filled his learned breast. Perhaps he may have remembered some occasion, in the dim and distant corner of the past, when he had suffered from a similar access of frantic terror, or perhaps he may have been sorry to think ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard

... in woful plight; borne in an hour syne by four carles who said you had been set upon by the Master of Albany, and sair harried, and they say the Tutor doth nought but wail for his bairns. How won ye out of his ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... forty galleys, galleots, and brigantines, bearing down upon him before the wind. His ships were scattered, for the sails could not keep up with the oars, and Condulmiero's huge Venetian carack was becalmed off Zuara, a long way behind, and others were in no better plight. Three hours Doria hesitated, and then gave the order to sail north and meet the enemy. Condulmiero was already fiercely engaged, and soon his carack was a mere unrigged helmless waterlog, only saved from instant destruction by ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... as much to excitement as to fear. In truth he was more excited than afraid; for he had absolutely nothing to lose save a suit of old clothes and his horse, and both of these were in sorry enough plight to be little tempting to those hardy ruffians, who were accustomed to have travellers to rob of a ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... But their plight was not so different from that of most of the population of Europe. They had been mistaken for six weeks, on the continent the interval may have been only six days or six hours. There was an interval. There was a ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... Gladness of an Hour Made flesh and blood! O beauteous Human Flower Too sweet to pluck, and yet, though seeming-cold, Ordain'd to love! I pray thee, as of old, Be kind to me. I saw thee yesternight, And for an instant I was urged to plight My troth again; for in thy face I saw What seem'd a smile evoked ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay

... familiar to thousands of British soldiers. The last time I had been there was on my return from leave in January 1917, when I dined and slept at the newly-opened officers' club. Since the Boche swoop last March it had become a target for British gunners, and seemed in as bad a plight as the village we had come through the night before. We had no time to visit it that morning, and trotted on along a road lined with unburied German dead, scattered ammunition, and broken German vehicles. The road dipped into a wood, and the colonel showed ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... had been rebuilt by Ramses II. and decorated by the Rames-sides, was in a sorry plight when the XXIInd dynasty came into power. Sheshonq I. did little or nothing to it, but Osorkon I. entirely remodelled it, and Osorkon II. added several new halls, including, amongst others, one in which he celebrated, in the twenty-second year ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... a bit. As it was, they hung about far off. It rained a perfect deluge that night, and my blanket roof collapsing I went to sleep with it over me as it fell, lullabyed by the soft cursings of my neighbours of 1 and 2 Mealie Villas, who were in like plight. The next morning we were to have had reveille at 5.30 and proceed to Rietfontein 12. (They have to number these places out here. You probably have noticed the innumerable Blandsfonteins, Hartebeestefonteins, Rietfonteins, Bethanies, etc., in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony.) But ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... forgot my plight and my natural instincts asserted themselves. As if I had been then what I had been ten days before, I ordered Chryseros to loose Agathemer and he obeyed me, as if I had been what I felt ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... the sound of the loving voice, leading them, calling them back to God, back to the "beauty ever ancient and ever new." Such souls as these, it is true, constitute one class of erring, but repenting sinners; but there is another class whose plight is far more pitiable. They are those long-delayed, but finally repentant sinners, men and women who have lived their lives away from the Church and its sacraments, who have grown old and gray in the sins of their youth, and now, at ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan

... arriving he addressed His care unto his pistols' plight, Replaced them in their box, undressed And Schiller read by candlelight. But one thought only filled his mind, His mournful heart no peace could find, Olga he sees before his eyes Miraculously fair arise, Vladimir closes up his book, And grasps a pen: his ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... the curtain, And shows us the people's plight; And everything seems uncertain, And nothing at all looks right. Yet out of the blackness groping, My heart finds a world in bloom; For it somehow is fashioned for hoping, And it cannot live in ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... a swift dream for Sir Hugh. He could think of nothing but the Lady Mary, with a strange leaping of the heart; that she was in the Castle above him, hidden somewhere like a flower in the dark walls; that he would stand before her to plight his Lord's troth; that he would ride with her through the forest; and that he would have her near him through the months, when she was wedded to the Earl—all this was a secret and urgent joy to him; not that he thought ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... stronger each day, and crosser, which is a good sign. At last I have told him of Sada San's plight; and he is for starting for Kioto to-morrow to "wipe the floor with Uncle Mura," as he elegantly expresses it. But of course he 's still too weak to even think of such ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... hear, my servant dear, If thou wilt only fight for me, My sister bright to thee I’ll plight, And she thy wedded wife ...
— Marsk Stig - a ballad - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise

... time to think of my own plight, I was so sorry for her distress, and so remorseful to think I had brought her into such straits for the sake ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... be bringing her to such a place? There was but a single answer. Such was the nature of their work that they must needs seek the seclusion that a dead city afforded. The girl trembled at thought of her plight. ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs



Words linked to "Plight" :   vouch, assure, promise, hot water, covenant, corner, difficulty, care, box, vow, assurance, betroth, guarantee



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