Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Root out   /rut aʊt/   Listen
Root out

verb
1.
Pull up by or as if by the roots.  Synonyms: deracinate, extirpate, uproot.
2.
Destroy completely, as if down to the roots.  Synonyms: eradicate, exterminate, extirpate, uproot.  "Root out corruption"






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 |





"Root out" Quotes from Famous Books



... life is in peril, but is ready, nevertheless, to obey his master's call. He is not designated as the power to effect the great revolution which should root out idolatry and destroy the house of Omri; but Jehu, an unscrupulous yet jealous warrior, was to found a new dynasty, and the king of Syria was to punish and afflict the ten tribes, and Elisha was to be the mouth-piece ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... their lives and thine Were not revenge sufficient for me. No; if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves And hung their rotten coffins up in chains, It could not slake mine ire nor ease my heart. The sight of any of the house of York Is as a fury to torment my soul; And till I root out their accursed line And leave not one alive, I live in ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... the king'; and that was, according to the law of Moses, a charge which, if proved, merited capital punishment. But it is Satan accusing sin for Jezebel, the Baal worshipper, who had done her best to root out the name of Jehovah, to accuse Naboth of departing from God. Much highhanded oppression must have gone before such outspoken contempt of justice; and, if Ahab represents the fatal connection of weakness and wickedness, Jezebel is an instance of the fatal audacity ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... the Eighth had no competitor to fear but the descendants of Clarence, of whom he seems to have had sufficient apprehension, as appeared by his murder of the old countess of Salisbury, daughter of Clarence, and his endeavours to root out her posterity. This jealousy accounts for Hall charging the duke of Clarence, as well as the duke of Gloucester, with the murder of prince Edward. But in accusations of so deep a dye, it is not sufficient ground ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

... persuaded to live in peace, but all their swelling and overflowing streams may be brought back into their natural channels and old banks. These two nations, I say, are at this day the most eminent and to be regarded; the one seeking to root out the Christian religion altogether, the other the truth and sincere profession thereof; the one to join all Europe to Asia, the other the rest of all Europe ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... with imprecation, to invoke God to root out and destroy popery—the order of priests, monks and nuns, together with the cloisters and other institutions, the whole world might well say, Amen. For these the devil's devices curse, condemn and impede everywhere God's Word and his blessing. These things are evils so pernicious, so diabolical, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson

... the Great Lakes have been attributed to the ice-sheet, but it is difficult to comprehend how an ice-sheet could dig out and root out a hole, as in the case of Lake Superior, ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... but it is a veritable magnificent safeguard of our most characteristic national life. Therefore it was that I called it the wild cultivation of the soil in contrast to the tame cultivation of the field. In our day, to root out the soil of the forest no longer means making it arable; it simply means exchanging one form of cultivation for another. He who estimates the value of the culture of the soil merely according to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... Coadjutors to help him. For it is not likely that one man alone could kill three such great and valiant persons, wherefore the truth must be tried out by the racke, and so wee shall learne what other companions he hath, and root out the nest of these mischievous murtherers. And there was no long delay, but according to the custome of Grecia, the fire, the wheele, and many other torments were brought in. Then my sorrow encreased or rather doubled, in that I ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... and bred in the State of New York. My father I never knew. My mother was kind and good; but she yielded to the dictates of her heart rather than to those of her judgment. She over-indulged me; she neglected to root out the bad seeds Satan is always striving to sow in the heart of man; and they grew up and flourished, till they brought me to what I now am. I was of a roving, unsettled disposition. I required excitement. I believe that I might, with care, have been led into the right way, but that ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... Dutch had a strong fort here, which the natives took and demolished after a long siege, putting all the garrison to the sword. At present, [in 1721,] the company only sends a detachment of soldiers to root out the clove-trees, for which the inhabitants receive some present. The two whites who were on board this Dutch bark were the first Christians seen by Roggewein for the space of ten months, or since leaving the coast of Brazil. Continuing their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... frequent conferences with her son the prince on the same subject; and she omitted no opportunity or argument to endeavour to root out his aversion to the fair sex; but he eluded all her reasonings by such arguments as she could not ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.

... forest-trees the layer's bent arch await, And slips yet quick within the parent-soil; No root need others, nor doth the pruner's hand Shrink to restore the topmost shoot to earth That gave it being. Nay, marvellous to tell, Lopped of its limbs, the olive, a mere stock, Still thrusts its root out from the sapless wood, And oft the branches of one kind we see Change to another's with no loss to rue, Pear-tree transformed the ingrafted apple yield, And stony cornels on the plum-tree blush. Come then, and learn what tilth to each belongs According to their kinds, ye husbandmen, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... considerations and reasons he can devise, to make him apprehend the advantage of improvement and literature. He does his utmost to make his progress easy, and to remove all impediments. He smooths the path by which he is to proceed, and endeavours to root out all its thorns. He exerts his eloquence to inspire his pupil with a love for the studies in which he is engaged. He opens to him the beauties and genius of the authors he reads, and endeavours to proceed with him hand in hand, and step ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... materialism which existing times tend to foster. Open anywhere in the Journals or in the Essays and we find the manly and heroic note. He is an unconquerable optimist, and says boldly, "Nothing but God can root out God," and he thinks that in time our culture will absorb the hells also. He counts "the dear old Devil" among the good things which the dear old world holds for him. He saw so clearly how good comes out of evil and is in the end always triumphant. Were he living in our day, he would doubtless ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs

... than weeds," Miss Corona reflected mournfully. But it did not matter; nothing mattered. She saw Charlotta sally forth into the garden with a determined, do-or-die expression surmounting her freckles, without feeling interest enough to go and make sure that she did not root out all the late asters in her tardy and ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... is made the chief Pursuit of Life, it will necessarily follow that such Monsters as these will arise from a constant Application to such Blandishments as naturally root out the Force of Reason and Reflection, and substitute in their Place a general Impatience of Thought, and a constant Pruiriency of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... statement: "I am resolved to be a good Mother to my children, to pray for them, to set them good examples, to give them good advice, to be careful both in their souls and bodys, to watch over their tender minds, to carefully root out the first appearing and budings of vice, and to instill piety.... To spair no paines or trouble to do them good.... And never omit to encourage every Virtue I may see dawning in them."[96] That her care brought forth good fruit is indicated when she spoke, years later, of her boy ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... matter to root out cockle so that it may not sprout again, so it is no less difficult for people who have once been habituated to evil to forbear relapsing into their crimes. Only a few days after the departure of Ojeda, one D. Ferdinand de Guevara, who was in disgrace with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... one in Egypt cannot govern the many; the pure exaltation of Ra as a supreme and absolute god does not prevent the worship of a different being in each different town. The one sole god is for the priests alone, not for the people; and this belief in him does not even lead to attempts to root out the worship of animals, or to concentrate the service of the temples on him alone. And in the absence of such attempts we read the sentence condemning a religion which produced most noble fruits of thought, to grow ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... himself a man who hates brutality and cruelty and wrong, or by standing aloof from helping us show that he has the will to do these things as his kinsman in France. These should be given the same medicine as the Kaiser's millions "over there." We should also root out the Kaiser's secret allies in our midst, some of them not of German blood, who for pay do his dirty work, never forgetting also that the neutral and the lukewarm at this present juncture are also our enemies and have their hands stained with the blood ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... not answer yes frankly and freely. It seemed a sheer impossibility for me to root out this new love, which I found in my heart below all the old loves and friendships of my whole life. Mad as I was with myself at the thought of my folly, the folly was so sweet to me, that I would ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... effort to make men see that their gods had all the time been wrong, and harder still to root out the age-long growth of rite and symbol. But on the old religion might be grafted new names; Midsummer was dedicated to the birth of Saint John; Lugnasad became Lammas. The fires belonging to these times of year were retained, their old significance ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley

... news-carrying or tattling. That, of course, is beneath any right-minded person. But we must—I say we must," Landis raised her finger impressively, and repeated the words as though she intended at that moment to root out the evil with tooth and nail, "We must get rid of this deceptive tendency. It will have an evil effect on Exeter. Perhaps, in ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... robber class, all risen into height of highest robber enthusiasm, pledged the vow to one another; Svein that he would conquer England (which, in a sense, he, after long struggling, did); and the Jomsburgers that they would ruin and root out Hakon Jarl (which, as we have just seen, they could by no means do), and other guests other foolish things which proved equally unfeasible. Sea-robber volunteers so especially abounding in that time, one perceives ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... breaking his chain with every blow of his pick. The Wall-street banker, the great railroad king, the cotton manufacturer, who railed against abolitionism like mad, were condemning the slave aristocracy every day they lived. There is a divine law by which the work of freemen shall root out the work of slaves; and no law enacted by the will of Northern doughfaces could repeal this statute of nature. These Northern friends of the aristocracy supposed themselves to be helping their ambitious allies by their political support. But the slaveholders knew how ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... never been out of Rome; the example of ostentation is set them by the Cardinals, of misconduct by the prelates, of venality by the different functionaries, of squandering by the Finance Minister. And above all, remember that care has been taken to root out from their hearts, as if it were a destructive weed, that noble sentiment of human dignity which is the ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... was the brave Samnite Pontius, whose head was cut off and carried under the walls of Praeneste, thereby announcing to the young Marius that his last hope of succour was gone. To the Samnite prisoners Sulla showed no mercy. He was resolved to root out of the peninsula those heroic enemies of Rome. On the third day after the battle he collected all the Samnite and Lucanian prisoners in the Campus Martius, and ordered his soldiers to cut them down. The ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... of English a hindrance. Cares of other kinds checked his English studies, but he may have learned enough to understand the meaning of his own English charters. Nor did William try, as he is often imagined to have done, to root out the ancient institutions of England, and to set up in their stead either the existing institutions of Normandy or some new institutions of his own devising. The truth is that with William began a gradual change in the laws and customs of England, undoubtedly great, ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... much experience, sagacious, of penetrating wit and well versed in affairs, said to him, "'Tis in my mind to do a certain thing whereof I will inform thee; my heart telleth me to fare forth alone this night and root out the mystery of this tarn and its fishes. Do thou take thy seat at my tent door, and say to the Emirs and Wazirs, the Nabobs and the Chamberlains, in fine to all who ask thee:—The Sultan is ill at ease, and he hath ordered me to refuse all admittance;[FN109] and be careful thou let none know ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... ignorance and superstition? Would he have been justified in sacrificing his own child, even if he could thereby save another's? And, moreover, was it not all a wild, heathenish delusion, which it was his duty as a servant of God to stamp out and root out at all hazards? Yes, there could be no doubt of it; he had but exercised his legal right. He had done what was demanded of him by laws human and divine. He had nothing to reproach himself for. And yet, with a haunting ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... unite, therefore, in imploring the Supreme Ruler of Nations to spread his holy protection over these United States; to turn the machinations of the wicked to the confirming of our Constitution; to enable us at all times to root out internal sedition and put invasion to flight; to perpetuate to our country that prosperity which his goodness has already conferred, and to verify the anticipations of this Government being a safeguard ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... thought, effectually shut the mouths of the gossips. From one point of view it was a noble thought, the determination to sacrifice himself wholly and for ever, rather than permit his name to be mentioned ever so innocently in connection with the woman he loved; to root out utterly his love for her by seriously engaging his faith to another, and keeping that engagement with all the strength of fidelity he knew himself to possess. He would save Corona from annoyance, and her name from the scandal-mongers; ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... national and one natural Deity; but by this saying he destroys the power and nature of the Gods. Speusippus is not much less in the wrong; who, following his uncle Plato, says that a certain incorporeal power governs everything; by which he endeavors to root out of our minds the knowledge of ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... Bel: "Thou art the belligerent leader of the gods, But why didst thou, without consultation, bring on the rainstorm? Punish the sinner for his sins, Punish the evil-doer for his evil deeds, But be merciful so as not to root out completely, Be ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... which rises to the surface of still waters. The scum shall be cleared away, and if it costs us the lives of our greatest, it will not be at too high a price. We as well as you need the bitter lesson which only disaster can teach us. We shall see our weakness face to face, we shall root out our weeds and start afresh. You and the whole world shall see that the soil ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... of schools towards the close of the sixteenth century, and in the seventeenth, as there always had been. "We have filled our children's bones with sin" says Hezekiah Woodward, "and it is our engagement to do all we can to root out that which we have been a means to root in so fast." A more serious spirit was abroad. The young man was to abstain from singing or humming a tune in company "especially if he has an unmusical or rough voice." Schoolmasters were to abstain from "dicing and carding," scholars from misdemeanour ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell

... now be, for were it after virtue, pure holy virtue, could I not still it? Dispel the mist that dims my eyes, that I may first plainly read the secrets of my wretched heart, and then give me, O Almighty God, the sincere will to root out all therein that beareth not ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... shall," exclaimed Mr. Early. "Of course I shall. I shall put it in the hands of the police at once, for I'm sure of one thing, if it helps to root out any sinners, Swami Ram Juna won't be among them. He's gone for good, take my word for it; and as for the other rascals, I hope with all my heart they may suffer." He nodded jubilantly at Mrs. Percival, and ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... we hear little, though they must have been great. Prince Henri is ready for Prag; many things are ready, were Olmutz but done! May 22d, Prince Henri had followed Mayer in person, with a stronger corps, to root out the Reichsfolk,—and is now in Bamberg City and Country. And is even in Baireuth itself, where was lately the Camp of the new Reichs General, Serene Highness of Zweibruck, and his nascent Reichs Army; who are off bodily to Bohemia, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... a Vaufontaine!" retorted the Duke, fighting down growing admiration for a kinsman whose family he would gladly root out, if it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... dug a hole in the earthen floor, under the greenhouse shelf, in a warm corner near the pipes. Next she dug her begonia root out of the pot, popped it into the hole, and covered it up, and left a bit of stick standing upright, holding in a ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... us that we make Him to be. I want to emphasize that word "all." Some men make Him to be "a root out of a dry ground," "without form or comeliness." He is nothing to them; they do not want Him. Some Christians have a very small Saviour, for they are not willing to receive Him fully, and let Him do great and mighty things for them. Others have ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody

... will, and that so much vaunted faculty of distinguishing good from evil, if the passions drown the feeble voice of reason, as the roar of the sea drowns the voice of the pilot whose vessel is about to be dashed against the rocks? Is it possible for man to destroy and root out of his breast the germ of evil which has been designedly introduced there? I hate, more bitterly than ever, the world, my fellow-creatures, and myself. Destined to suffer, why was I born with the desire ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... with that air of consequence and mystery hanging about him, like the fog from his own shaggy hide after a winter wetting; with those short ears perpetually cocked, as if he felt that his destiny was cast in an age and a land where to hunt, kill, and utterly root out bears, panthers, wolves, and Indians from the top of the earth was the sole end and aim of existence. I see him with that great brush of a tail curled tightly—nay, inflexibly—over his right leg, as if his was a will ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... higher, in the hope that some enterprising Boche flier, seeing their challenge, would come over to give them battle. For half an hour, they kept this up, and then, as they tempted forth no adversary, determined to drop down once more and root out a third nest before going in for the ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach

... 18-month mandate to hold a nationwide Loya Jirga to adopt a constitution and a 24-month mandate to hold nationwide elections. In December 2002, the TISA marked the one-year anniversary of the fall of the Taliban. In addition to occasionally violent political jockeying and ongoing military action to root out remaining terrorists and Taliban elements, the country suffers from enormous poverty, a crumbling infrastructure, and ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... "I do not think he [Arthur] knows anything. He can quote a verse of poetry, or a page from Dickens and Thackeray, but these are only leaves springing from a root out of dry ground. His vital forces are not fed, and very soon he has given out his all." Mrs. James G. Blaine, Letters (February 21, 1882), Vol. 1, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... the place; above me Root out weeds and grass; Fast no more; obeying, love me; Watch ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... movement was already launched, it was in a deplorable condition when these two began their great work of uniting the toilers and organizing a political party. One of the first difficult tasks placed before them was to root out of the labor movement the corruption which Bismarck had introduced into it. That great and rising statesman was a practical politician not excelled even in America. In the most cold-blooded manner he sought to buy men and movements. For various reasons of his ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... remarked, however, that I was not likely to be so well off on my return, because, in the country to which I was going, there was abundance of damaged goods, but that no one knew better than he did how to root out the venom left by the use of such bad merchandise. He begged that I would depend upon him, and not trust myself in the hands of quacks, who would be sure to palm their remedies upon me. I promised him everything, and, taking ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... what we heard? (or what was reported to us) and to whom was the arm of Jehovah revealed? For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. He had no form nor comeliness; and when we saw him there was no beauty that we should desire him, He was despised and the outcast of men; a man of sorrows and familiar with grief;[fn46] and we hid as it were our faces from him, (or, ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English

... The purpose of the epistle was to root out the errors of doctrine introduced by the Judaizers and to hold the Galatians to their earlier faith. To do this it was necessary to establish his apostolic authority and the divine origin of his gospel. He also desired to show the practical value or application of his teaching. He especially shows ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... the gentle tear of recollection; when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange it even for the song of pleasure or the burst ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... make. But prayer will never produce an improved air-ship. We must dig into science for it. Our ancestors did not pray for us to become a race of symmetrically-shaped and universally healthy people, and expect that to effect a result. They went to work on scientific principles to root out disease and crime and want and wretchedness, and every ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... over again in every county in the nation, and every case must have a separate process; and by the time that three or four hundred prosecutions have been had, the eyes of the nation will then be fully open to see that the work in question contains a plan the best calculated to root out all the abuses of government, and to lessen the taxes of the nation upwards of ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... increase to a considerable degree. But it seems our nation had more skill and ability in destroying than in settling a colony. In the last war, we did, in my opinion, most inhumanly, and upon pretences that in the eye of an honest man are not worth a farthing, root out this poor, innocent, deserving people, whom our utter inability to govern, or to reconcile, gave us no sort of right to extirpate. Whatever the merits of that extirpation might have been, it was on the footsteps of a neglected people, it was on the fund of unconstrained ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... assistance had repatriated 2.3 million Afghan refugees and has undertaken a census to count the remaining million or more, many of whom remain at their own choosing; Pakistan maintains troops in remote tribal areas to control the border with Afghanistan and root out organized terrorist and other illegal cross-border activities; regular meetings with Afghan and Coalition allies aim to resolve periodic claims of ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... of the Clergy's friends cannot hitherto reconcile themselves to this project, which they call a levelling principle, that must inevitably root out the seeds of all honest emulation, the legal parent of the greatest virtues, and most generous actions among men; but which, in the general opinion (for I do not pretend to offer my own,) will never more have room to exert itself in the breast of any clergyman whom ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... generations could hardly be supposed to have manured the whole territory with an adequate sense of the wrongs they were enduring, and the withering effects of such wrongs on the sources of public prosperity. Hatred, besides, without hope, is no root out of which an effective resistance can be expected to grow; and fifty years almost had elapsed before a great power had arisen in Europe, having in any capital circumstance a joint interest with Greece, or specially authorized, by visible right and power, to interfere as her protector. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... by my government to root out, if possible, this traffic on and near our settlements on the coast, I must now give you notice, that you must break up your establishment at this point, in two weeks from this date; failing to do so, I shall take such measures as I conceive necessary ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... representatives at the council-board men of an entirely different stamp—advocates of persecution, of extermination; a few, from conscientious motives, preferring, with Alva, a kingdom ruined in the attempt to root out heresy, to one flourishing, with heresy tolerated; a larger number—and Cardinal Lorraine, who had now resumed his seat and his influence, must be classed with these—counting upon deriving personal advantage from the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... and direction in the enterprise which Cyrus led from Western Asia to dethrone his brother Artaxerxes from the throne of Persia. Some fourteen thousand Greeks from different States joined his standard—not with a view of a march to Babylon and an attack on the great king, but to conquer and root out the Pisidian mountaineers, who did much mischief from their fastnesses in the southeast of Asia Minor. This was the ostensible object of Cyrus, and he found no difficulty in enlisting Grecian mercenaries, under promise of large ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... carrying the decree into effect, a guillotine was imported from Lucca, and an executioner was hired at a salary of ten pounds a month. As if this were not sufficiently explicit, the Grand Duke told his subjects that he was "determined to root out Protestantism from his State, though he should be handed down to posterity as a monster of cruelty." Neither the spectacle of the guillotine nor the terrible threat of the Grand Duke could arrest the progress of the good work. The Bible was sought after, and ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... him, they were now absolutely overcome by his virtue. Though they thus humbly addressed him, his friends advised him not to pardon these turbulent and ill-conditioned men, but to yield them to the desires of his soldiers, and utterly root out of the commonwealth the ambitious affectation of popularity, a disease as pestilent and pernicious as the passion for tyranny itself. Dion endeavored to satisfy them, telling them that other generals exercised and trained themselves ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... resolved to try and root out all these strange notions from Pierre's head. He soon felt a kind of ecstacy. It was a glorious thing to help bring about the time when science would sweep ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel

... is grateful to God, as we discover on close examination it is required of us. Forasmuch, then, as thou hast signified to us, most clear son in Christ, that thou art wishful to enter the island of Ireland, to subdue that people under the laws, and to root out of it the weeds of vice, and art wishful to pay to St. Peter, a pension of one penny a-year for each house, and to preserve intact the rights of the Church in that country; we, regarding favourably, and vouchsafing to thy petition our gracious assent, hold it to be ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby

... any reason. No doubt most of them have earned the right to do so. But you can't rip up those hills with giant-powder where you feel inclined, or set to work to root out some miles of forest. The Government encourages that kind of ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... enterprise of Lycurgus was a new division of the lands. For he found a prodigious inequality, the city overcharged with many indigent persons, who had no land, and the wealth centred in the hands of a few. Determined, therefore, to root out the evils of insolence, envy, avarice, and luxury, and those distempers of a state still more inveterate and fatal, I mean poverty and riches, he persuaded them to cancel all former divisions of land, and to make new ones, in such a manner ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... and very necessary task. This was to discover and root out corruption wherever it was found in any of the departments. The first essential was to make it clearly understood that no political or business or social influence of any kind would for one moment be even considered when the honesty of a public official ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... Particularly anxious to root out these heathenish weeds which were chocking the growth of the good seed, Superintendant Rose, in 1787, inspected Hopedale, where they appeared most thickly scattered, and producing the most baneful effects. He spoke to every member of the congregation separately; and when they had ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous

... was over, the king of the snakes presented himself before the Grandsire. And the gods, accompanied by Vasuki, addressed the Grandsire, saying, 'O lord, Vasuki is suffering great affliction from fear of (his mother's curse). It behoveth thee to root out the sorrow, begotten of the curse of his mother, that hath pierced the heart of Vasuki desirous of the weal of his race. The king of the snakes is ever our friend and benefactor. O Lord of the gods, be gracious unto him and assuage ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... if the Spaniards never came upon it; and I think there can be no doubt whatever that in this respect the traditions must be true. The whole thing would have been upset if the Spaniards had once paid a visit there, for, from what we saw at Pachacamac and Cuzco, they spared no exertions whatever to root out likely hiding-places. The treasure, if there is one, will be difficult to find, but I have got nearly a year yet, and if necessary I will spend the whole of it in digging. Dias could go and get provisions for us. Of course he must not always go to the ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty

... with prayer. I began to feel hope that time and toil might strengthen me to despise the "vulgar parts of felicity," and live as becomes an immortal creature. I am sure, quite sure, that I am getting into the right road. Oh, lead me, my Father! root out false pride and selfishness from my heart; inspire me with virtuous energy, and enable me to improve every talent for the eternal ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... these slaves were embarked for St. Domingo, in order to root out that nation in the Colony; which was the only method of effecting it, as the few that escaped had not a tenth of the women necessary to recruit the nation. And thus that nation, the most conspicuous in the Colony, and most useful to the French, ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... Mr. Gibney, as he leaped into the hold. "Bear a light here until I can root out the wheels of these guns. Here they are, labelled 'cream separator.' Stand by with that ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... mind I might as well hang up in Bold Island harbor as to spend half the night gittin' to the landin', an' take a chance of straddlin' a ledge. I got inter the harbor all right, an' kinder thought I'd try ter root out a few clams on Bold Island beach. My old boat laid nearer to the back of Devil Island than it did to Bold Island. I rowed off to Bold Island in my dory, but the tide was comin' in, an' I didn't git no clams to speak of. It was ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... appealing strongly to the emotions, and having a touch of martyrdom still clinging to its profession. Among those Federalists who were also Congregationalists, the French Revolution was believed to be the "result of a combination long since formed in Europe by infidels and atheists to root out and effectually destroy religion and civil government." Holding this opinion; seeing the Baptists and Methodists increasing in importance, both in the nation and in the state; watching the continual increase of the unorthodox and of the freethinker, and perceiving the growing loss of confidence ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... the true interests of his country, with which his own are so intimately blended. Let him apply himself to the developement of her internal resources, to the promotion of education and civilisation among the people, and, above all, let him root out that spirit of indolence which has taken such firm hold upon all classes. It is his policy to do all this, that Servia may be in a position to assume that leading place among the Slavonic races which she arrogates to herself, should unforeseen circumstances call upon ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... these wretched beings would never have another chance. If joy was to be kept (and Nietzsche was avid for joy), if the universe was to be accepted (and Nietzsche desired above all to say Yes! to the universe), then he must root out pity from his heart as an unmanly weakness. In this way was sharpened the ruthlessness and savage arrogance latent in the man, a ruthlessness and an arrogance that have done so much harm both to his country ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... wrong of vagrancy was not corrected by merely driving tramps over the limits of one town into those of another. Moreover, there was a deeper and more interior reason against the passage of such repressive laws; to his thinking it behooved society, if it would root out this evil, to seek first the radix from which it drew existence; it behooved them first to very thoroughly diagnose the disease before attempting a hasty cure. "So let us now," said he, "set about searching for this radix, and then so drive the spade of reform as ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... reductio ad absurdum consists of showing that the argument to be refuted, if true, proves not only the conclusion given, but also other conclusions which are manifestly absurd. For example, a debater once contended that colleges should not seek to root out professionalism in athletic sports, because, by coming in contact with college life, professional players receive considerable benefit. His opponent answered him by showing that the same argument carried out to its logical conclusion would prove that a college ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... to meet breast to breast," he said; "if we are to conquer and to root out these hornets it must be by showing ourselves even more active than they are. Speed and activity go for everything in a war like this, while our own methods of fighting are absolutely useless. Unless we make an end of this ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... of the Father which Jesus Christ proved by His works on earth to be a kingdom of justice and righteousness, of love and fellow-feeling. When we pray, 'Thy kingdom come,' it is as if we said, 'Son of God, root out of this sinful earth all self-will and lawlessness, all injustice and cruelty; root out all carelessness, ignorance, and hardness of heart; root out all hatred, envy, slander; root them out of all men's hearts; out of my heart, for I have the seeds ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley

... devotees in this country called Yogis, whose object it is to root out every human feeling. Some live in holes and caves. Some drag around a heavy chain attached to them. Some make the circuit of an empire, creeping on their hands and knees. Some roll their bodies from the shores of the Indus ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder

... was a casting-out of prejudice, a discarding of political chicanery and a time-serving policy, and a recognition of Justice, Right, and Freedom as the true elements of political economy. There was an increasing desire on the part of the people to root out Slavery ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... pro re nata. The Coronation Oath doth also suppose the antecedent Judgement of the Kirk, as the proper and competent judge who are enemies to true Religion & who not; for his Majesty obliged himself by that Oath, that he should be carefull to root out all Hereticks and enemies to the true Worship of God, who shall be convict by the true Kirk of God, of the aforesaid crimes. 10. The General Assembly and their Commissioners are now deprived of their liberty of Printing, confirmed and ratified ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... seals, the dogs must put themselves to some expense; yet instead of enjoying my magnanimity quietly and like sensible people, they rave and revile me all round, and hunt for every expression of loathing they can root out of the animal creation, ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... anti-Bonapartists, and have been sent to Cayenne long ere now? The wish of these writers is very natural. They want to 'organise society,' to erect a despot who will do what they like, and work out their ideas; but any despot will do what he himself likes, and will root out new ideas ninety-nine times for once that he introduces them. Again, side by side with these Comtists, and warring with them—at least with one of them—is Mr. Arnold, whose poems we know by heart, and who has, as much as any living Englishman, the genuine literary impulse; and yet ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot

... who we were; upon which they came up to us, setting up a holloo of triumph, in token that more help was come. Noble Captain, said he to my nephew, I'm glad your come: we have not half done with these villainous hell-hound dogs; wee'll root out the very nation of them from the earth, and kill more than poor Tom has hairs upon his head: and thus he went on till I interrupted him.—"Blood-thirsty dog," said I, "will your cruelty never end? ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... nor tender parents suspect the truth expressed by Carlyle when he said that the marks of a noble and original temperament are wild, strong emotions, that must be controlled by a discipline as hard as steel. People either strive to root out passions altogether, or they abstain from teaching the child to get them ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key

... history has turned round two points of hope; one, the first—the other, the second coming of the Messiah. The magnificent imagery of Hebrew prophecy had described the advent of the Conqueror; He came—"a root out of a dry ground, with no form or comeliness; and when they saw Him there was no beauty in Him that they should desire Him." The victory, predicted in such glowing terms, turned out to be the victory of Submission—the Law of our Humanity, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... looked upon Burlingame chiefly as one of those inevitable vintages from a vineyard which, according to the favour or disfavour of Heaven, yields from the same soil both good and bad. He had none of that Puritanism which would ruthlessly root out the vines yielding the bad wine. To his mind that could only be done by the axe, the rope or the bullet. It seemed of little use, and very unfair, to drive the wolf out of your own garden into that of your neighbour. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... trying to root out the Ministry; he has been telling the King that his present Ministers are not standing by him; that he ought to have a divorce. There is a flirtation between ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... wrong to promise my faith to another, and that it is a worse wrong in you to try to get that promise from me by force. A vow that could be nothing but a solemn lie! Would the ring on my finger be a charm to make me forget? Would the priest's words and blessing be a spell to root out of my heart what is the best part of my life? Better go to a nunnery, and weep for the truth, than to hope for peace in such a lie as that—better a thousand, ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... might be dealt naval bases supposedly secure under the guns of fortifications, but something more than a sally will be necessary to smoke out the German fleet, or to root out the nests of submarines along the coast of Belgium. Again, there is the theory that eventually the Germans will come out and give battle. There is a psychological backing for this assumption, for the irksomeness of being penned up wears and wears until it is not to be borne. At ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... wonted solace to the widow and orphan; yet beware that your pity does not lead you to seek to set aside the laws even for these. Oh, most holy men, banish to the home of all other unclean spirits violence, avarice, hatred, rapine; and root out from among your people luxury, which is the depopulator of the human race. Let the Bishop teach, that the Judge may have a maiden assize[732]. If only your preaching he continued, the penal course of law must necessarily come to ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... and student of the evolution of religions sees one of many evidences of ancient mythology perverted to bring it into the service of Christianity. Originally the Wild Huntsman was Odin (or Wotan). The missionaries to the Germans, finding it difficult to root out belief in the ancient deities, gave their attributes to saints in a few cases, but for the greater part transformed them into creatures of evil. It was thus that Frau Holle (or Holda) became a wicked ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... to be working for the good of humanity is hypocritic and flagrant self- contradiction. This attitude of mind on the part of a few men does more to arouse the indignation of opponents than any cruelty itself. Scientific men should root out of their ranks such poor representatives. They are enemies in the scientific household. Dr. Klein, a physiologist, before the Royal Commission, testified that he had no regard at all for the sufferings of the animals he used, and never used ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... in recognizing the bride as the speaker in verses 2-7. The words are not those of one dead in trespasses and sins, to whom the LORD is as a root out of a dry ground—without form and comeliness. The speaker has had her eyes opened to behold His beauty, and longs for a fuller ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor

... dislike, and though I flatter myself that I have the seeds of justice strong enough to keep from doing wrong, even to an enemy, yet there lurks a hidden poison in the heart that it is difficult to root out. It is my misfortune to catch fire on a sudden, to answer letters the moment I receive them, when they touch me sensibly, and to suffer passion to dictate my expressions more than my reason. The next day, perhaps, would have changed this, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... first necessities are the surroundings of a gentleman. When a man is grown up, he can live in a sty and not be a pig; but turn a horde of boys in, and when they come out they will root out. A man is strong and stiff. His inward, inherent power, toughened by exposure and fortified by knowledge, overmasters opposing circumstances. He can neglect the prickles and assume the rose of his position. He stands scornfully erect amid the grovelling influences that would pull him ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... divisions which had been established between beings evidently similar. Nevertheless these divisions subsisted for ages; they still subsist in many places; and on all sides they have left imaginary vestiges, which time alone can efface. If it be so difficult to root out an inequality which solely originates in the law, how are those distinctions to be destroyed which seem to be founded upon the immutable laws of nature herself? When I remember the extreme difficulty with which aristocratic bodies, ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... among the Hebrew people. That the Mosaic economy suffered, for the time being, certain usages not good in themselves, is no valid objection to it, but rather a proof of the divine wisdom of its author. Though it was his purpose to root out of human society every organic evil, he would not attempt it by premature legislation, any more than he would send his Son into the world until the way was prepared for ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... Morhut there to await the judgment-day. And when the trump of the angel Israfil shall sound and the Marvel from the Mountain of Safa doth appear to write 'Mumen'[11] or 'Giaour'[12] on the foreheads of mankind; and when Al-Dallaja[13] comes to root out the nation of the Osmanli, and the hosts of Gog and Magog appear to exterminate the Christians, and drink up the waters of the rivers, and at the last all things perish before the Mahdi; then when the mountains are rent asunder and the stars fall from Heaven, when the archangels ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai

... the sentence, "well done, thou good and faithful servant," from day to day; and when we hear it, we are ready for further labor. We need also to give this daily meed of praise to those who deserve it, that we may keep ourselves unselfish, and root out from ourselves all niggardliness. We owe it to ourselves to pay off every debt as soon as it is incurred, and never, under any selfish motive, to ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... other day that Indian came here by rail and foot and Lord only knows how else, all the way from New Orleans! He spoke English better than most Indians, and I know a little Yaqui. I got some of his story and guessed the rest. The Mexican government is trying to root out the Yaquis. A year ago his tribe was taken in chains to a Mexican port on the Gulf. The fathers, mothers, children, were separated and put in ships bound for Yucatan. There they were made slaves on the great henequen ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... though not in London, that I bore that burden I told you of. It doesn't seem possible to me, but I'm told, and I read, that my mind diseased may be an effect, and that the cause may lie in my body. That's why I come to you. Doctor Levillier, root out the ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... was the bearer of terrible orders. Louis XIV was determined, no matter what it cost, to root out heresy, and set about this work as if his eternal salvation depended on it. As soon as M. de Baville had read these orders, he published ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... thoughts has been compared by a mental scientist to a dirty wash-bowl full of dirty water. Take the wash-bowl near a tap and turn the tap on. The steady pour of clean water will soon wash off all the dirty water and fill the wash-bowl with clear water. So the only way to root out and destroy evil thoughts is to turn a steady stream of positive thoughts to overcome all fear thoughts, you should think courage-thoughts. Don't crawl on your belly; don't call upon Heaven to witness that ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji

... people thought about the Messiah: "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." According to the Baptist, the Messiah would spare no kind of sham or hypocrisy; he would root out and utterly destroy every kind of social evil, no matter what. John insisted that it would be of no use for Jews to imagine that simply because they were descendants of Abraham they would escape this general visitation; hence his ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... however, the Catholic sovereigns requested from the pope authorization for the appointment by themselves of inquisitors to root out this heresy. A bull for the purpose was granted them, and on September 27, 1480, the Spanish Inquisition was established at Seville. In January, 1481, it began its work, and branches were gradually ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... extend to schismatics, heretics, and heathen. He seems to have reserved his most violent language for Lombards and Patriarchs of Constantinople. He called worldly or negligent bishops to order, and in particular took vigorous measures to root out simony, which was very prevalent. He sent Augustine and his companions to England, and wrote them letters of exhortation and instruction; he found time to send them also church furniture, vessels and vestments, and a number ...
— St. Gregory and the Gregorian Music • E. G. P. Wyatt

... the hard measures employed by England to cripple the development of the Colonies in every direction, except such as might be profitable to herself, it was a very difficult matter to root out their affection for the mother-country. Pownall, who was in this country from 1753 to 1761, successively Governor of Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Governor of New Jersey, and Governor of South Carolina, gives us the most ample ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... that the Lord does not blame them for their purpose. He merely points out to them its danger; and forbids it because it is dangerous; for their wish to root out the tares was not 'natural.' We shall libel it by calling it that. It was distinctly spiritual, the first impulse of spiritual men, who love right, and hate wrong, and desire to cultivate the one, and exterminate the other. To root out the tares; to ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford

... this gentleman, the only innocent persons in Ireland were the Protestant tenantry; so to root out the Catholics and replace them by Protestants was the only possible way to have peace in the country. Boycotting he referred to especially as a dangerous thing, which paralyzed all industry and turned the country into a place governed by the ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... without her attractions. Her chief faults, I am inclined to think, were those arising from want of discipline in youth. I have hopes that it is not even yet too late to root out from her nature the ...
— Fanny and the Servant Problem • Jerome K. Jerome

... answer to leading questions. No explanation is offered by the objectors as to how the Inquisitors arrived at the form of questionary, nor is any regard given to the injunction to all Inquisitors to acquaint themselves with all the details of any heresy which they were commissioned to root out; they were to obtain the information from those who would recant and use it against the accused; and to instruct other judges in the belief and ritual of the heresy, so that they also might recognize it and act accordingly. The objectors also overlook the fact that the believers in any given religion, ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... habits. What was the result of the epistle is not known, but it is to be feared that the attempt to recover the captives was not successful. Slavery and the trade in slaves was almost more difficult to root out than paganism, and the inhuman traffic was in full activity as late as the tenth century between England and Ireland, and the port of Bristol was one ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... and then there is room for the promise and the law, the one to kill, the other to heal; and so the law is not against the promises; but make the law a justifier, and faith is made void, and the promise is made of none effect (Rom 4:14); and the everlasting gospel, by so doing, thou endeavourest to root out of the world. Methinks, since it hath pleased God to reject the law and the righteousness thereof for life, such dust and ashes as we are should strive to consent to his holy will, especially when in the room of this [covenant] of works there is established ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... tenet that the more the glory of the Prophet was exalted, and the more his followers exerted themselves in the subversion of idolatry, the greater would be their reward in heaven; that therefore it was his firm resolution, with the assistance of God, to root out the abominable worship of idols from the land of India: why then should he ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... also notice the childish wonder of a rude, primitive, but brave people, who magnified a neighboring monarch of great skill and strength, or perhaps a malarious fen, into a giant, and who were pleased with a poem which caters to that heroic mythus which no civilization can root out of the human breast, and which gives at once charm and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... life, he said. For even these, the giants scatter life Into the maws of death. That towering tree That for these hundred years has leafed itself, And through its leaves out of the magic air Drawn nutriment for annual girths, took root Out of an acorn which good chance preserved, While all its brother acorns cast to earth, To make trees, by a parent tree now gone, Were crushed, devoured, or strangled as they sprouted Amid thick jealous growth wherein they fell. All acorns but this ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... expect it to be? would he have us represent it as beautiful and gratifying? The answer to this question, I fear, must be a blunt Yes; for it seems impossible to root out of an Englishman's mind the notion that vice is delightful, and that abstention from it is privation. At all events, as long as the tempting side of it is kept towards the public, and softened by plenty of sentiment and sympathy, it is welcomed by our Censor, whereas the slightest attempt ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... other sex which men are so pleased to indulge in. Scarcely any thing could be more ridiculous from first to last, when calmly and truly considered, than the firm belief which no power of reason could for the time root out of him. ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... of the vainest of Frenchmen. He believed that his book on the 'Rights of Man' might supply the place of all the books that had ever been written. If it was in his power, he would destroy all the libraries in the world without hesitation, in order to root out the errors of which they were the deposit, and so recommence by the 'Rights of Man' a new chain of ideas and principles." Thus Paine and his wild friends had reached the point of folly in the reformer's scale, and, like so many of their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... actually used the phrase. Between the debonair, experienced New York lawyer, so much in demand for cases requiring discretion and so capable of dealing with them—between him and the farmer's boy he had been there was no more resemblance than between a living word and the dead root out of which it has been coined. In Emery Bland's case the word was not only living, but pliant, eloquent, and arresting to ear and eye. He was one of those men who overlook nothing that can be counted as ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King

... Commissioners to root out this hellish crew, that rest and quietness might be regained; and the rather, because the children who used to be carried away in the district of Elfdale, since some witches had been burnt ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... hard at the Indians. The entire colony was put on a war footing. Campaigns, usually by small mobile forces, were conducted against the Indians where they could be found. The June Assembly passed an act for "perpetuall warre with the Indians" promising to "pursue and root out those which have any way had theire hands in the shedding of our blood ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn

... a somewhat dangerous operation in a comparative trial. Any one who has done it often, knows that there is a strong propensity to root out the weaker plants and to spare the stronger ones. Obviously this is the best way for ordinary purposes, but for comparisons evidently one should not discriminate. This rule is very difficult in practice, and for this reason one should never sow more than is absolutely ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... Slavery were all that its apologists assume it to be, and that the relation of master and slave were of God's appointing, would not its abuses be just the thing which it was the duty of Christian men to protest against, and, as far as might be, to root out? Would our courts feel themselves debarred from interfering to rescue a daughter from a parent who wished to make merchandise of her purity, or a wife from a husband who was brutal to her, by the plea that parental authority and marriage were of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... stop. I can feel what Mr. Shaw probably means when he says that it is disgusting to feast off dead bodies, or to cut lumps off what was once a living thing. But I can never know at what moment he may not feel in the same way that it is disgusting to mutilate a pear-tree, or to root out of the earth those miserable mandrakes which cannot even groan. There is no natural limit to this rush and ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... dispeople[obs3]; depopulate; relegate, deport. empty; drain to the dregs; sweep off; clear off, clear out, clear away; suck, draw off; clean out, make a clean sweep of, clear decks, purge. embowel[obs3], disbowel[obs3], disembowel; eviscerate, gut; unearth, root out, root up; averuncate|; weed out, get out; eliminate, get rid of, do away with, shake off; exenterate[obs3]. vomit, throw up, regurgitate, spew, puke, keck[obs3], retch, heave, upchuck, chuck up, barf; belch out; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... was total depravity. Here it is. If you attempt to pull up and root out sin in you, which shows on the surface,—if it does not show, you do not care for it,—you may have noticed how it runs into an interior network of sins, and an ever-sprouting branch of these roots somewhere; and that you cannot pull out one without making a general internal ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... other individual martyrdoms to insert that of John Calas, which took place so lately as 1761, and is an indubitable proof of the bigotry of popery, and shows that neither experience nor improvement can root out the inveterate prejudices of the Roman catholics, or render them less cruel or inexorable ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... Moabites and Midianites believed to be Moses' peer was none other than Laban, Israel's arch-enemy, who in olden days had wanted to root out entirely Jacob and all his family, [722] and who had later on incited Pharaoh and Amalek against the people of Israel to bring about their destruction. [723] Hence, too, the name Balaam, "Devourer of Nations," for he was determined ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... as the colonists were, very little effort was made to convert the Negroes, owing partly, at least, to a prevalent opinion that neither Christian brotherhood nor the law of England would justify the holding Christians as slaves. Nor could repeated colonial enactments to the contrary entirely root out this idea, for it was not supposed that a colonial statute could set ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... Spaniards were not contented with such a petty triumph as that of sweeping the island of Tortuga free from the obnoxious strangers, down upon Hispaniola they came, flushed with their easy victory, and determined to root out every Frenchman, until not one single buccaneer remained. For a time they had an easy thing of it, for each French hunter roamed the woods by himself, with no better company than his half-wild dogs, so that when two or three Spaniards ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... Auguster's ribs.' 'I'll try it,' says Andy, 'fur to-morrer is Christmas, an' if I kin help it I ain't goin' to be floatin' atop of a Christmas dinner without eatin' any on it.' I let him go, fur he was a good swimmer an' diver, an' I did hope he might root out somethin' or other, fur Christmas is about the worst day in the year fur men to be starvin' on, an' that's what we was ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton

... a little preliminary talk, "I have been sent up by Captain Wilson, with instructions to root out ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty

... overturn the Anglican church; nor is it a libel on the church of Rome to say, that in all these proceedings, she acted on recognised principles—principles which had received the solemn sanction of her councils. To root out heresy, by any means within their reach, was deemed, or at all events was asserted to be a sacred duty incumbent on all the members of the church of Rome. The doctrine may be denied in the present day, when times and circumstances ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury

... importance of this, and considering that, if that fortress were taken, besides the great profit from the cloves, [13] these regions would be safe from so fierce an enemy as that which is harassing and overrunning it, and especially that these islands would root out those Mindanaos and Joloans—it seemed to him expedient and necessary that part of what had been prepared for Pintados should be sent to the aforesaid fleet. In order to carry this out well, the president ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson

... hair that was not ornamental. The eyebrows, moustache, and, unfortunately, the beard seemed to most races worth preserving. There are, indeed, some happy peoples who have no beards, or none worth notice. Very early in their history they must have taken the great resolve to "live down" and root out the martial growth that fringes our lips. But among European peoples the absence of a beard has usually been a reproach, and the enemies of Njal, in ancient Iceland, could find nothing worse to say of him than ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... for properly carrying it out. I am quite sure that nothing is to be done in a hurry; a good and zealous man in ignorance and haste might do more harm in one year than could be remedied in ten. I would not root out a single superstition until I had something better to put in its place, lest if all the weeds were rooted up, what had before been fertile should become desert, barren, disbelieving in anything. Is not the right way to plant the true seed and nourish it that it may take root, and out-grow ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... is essentially a religion of society, that it sets before us social claims as standing before all other claims; that, starting from the Divine Sacrifice as the central fact of human life, it was intended to root out of our hearts the noxious weed of selfishness by the power of the Divine love, and to build up the organisation of men in their common relationships upon ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival

... was determined to root out the heresy—if it existed there—from the court; and those who knew him, knew that there was no cruelty of which he would not be guilty to accomplish his end. Wriothesley, the chancellor, waited on the unfortunate Miss Askew to examine her concerning the religious sentiments ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... you shall shine more bright in these contents, Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn [iconoclasm], And broils [civil war] root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... of that noble by-blow, let's destroy and root out these wicked Furred Law-cats, that are a kind of ravenous devils; thus we shall remove all manner of tyranny out of the land. Mawmet's tutor swallow me body and soul, tripes and guts, if I would stay to ask your help or advice in the matter were I but as strong as he was. Come, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... religious reasons. They escape to South America, and make their way into the Orinoco river. There follow innumerable adventures and near shaves of various kinds. But it was a mistake again, because the Spanish are administering the territory, and wish to root out anyone who has no business ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston

... mother, 'A little more than kin, and less than kind.' [For the relation between kind (the adj.) and kind ('nature,' the sb.) see Skeat's Dict.]] Beautiful before, how much more beautiful do 'kind' and 'kindness' appear, when we apprehend the root out of which they grow, and the truth which they embody; that they are the acknowledgment in loving deeds of our kinship with our brethren; of the relationship which exists between all the members of the human family, ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... here what he said about the Extraordinary Tax, for it was merely a repetition of what I had heard him say in committee. In connection with it, however, he admitted that capitalism and profiteering were hard things to root out, saying that they had great difficulty in getting at what he called "the new bourgeoisie," namely the speculators who have made fortunes since the revolution by selling scarce food products at fantastic prices. It was difficult to tax them because they carried on their operations ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome

... Lord, our faith increase; Cleanse from all unrighteousness: Thee th' unholy cannot see: Make, O make us meet for thee: Every vile affection kill; Root out every seed of ill; Utterly abolish sin; Write thy law ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... overbearing toward his companions; a trespasser on the rights and privileges of others; and determinedly disobedient to his father. But for all this his father was to blame. While sternly repressing the evil in his child, he had not lovingly sought to develop the good. While vainly striving to root out the tares which the enemy had sown, he had injured the tender wheat, whose green blades were striving to lift themselves to the sunlight. Alas! how many parents, in their strange blindness, are doing the same work for ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur

... Majesty, I'll lay you forty shillings there's one man in this palace that has a Bible! He cut me short for swearing in the yard a month since. That's old David, your Majesty's Scots cook. If you'll send for him—' 'Done!' says the King. 'Killigrew, root out old Davie, and tell him to come here, and bring his Bible with him.' So away went Mr Killigrew, the King's favourite page; and ere long back he comes, and old Davie with him, and under Davie's arm a great brown book. 'Here he is, Sire, ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... the past should be buried. The music of life would be mute if the chords of memory were snapped asunder. It is but the poisonous weeds, not the flowers, that we should root out from the garden of Mnemosyne. Do you remember Dickens' "Haunted Man"—how he prayed for forgetfulness, and how, when his prayer was answered, he prayed for memory once more? We do not want all the ghosts laid. It is only the haggard, cruel-eyed specters that we flee from. Let the gentle, ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... within the power of man to accomplish. It is, when his heart is filled with sincere faith, he resolves to root out from his mind all evil promptings and desires, and when, in order to attain this end, he ceases to walk the path ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... this Pope who commissioned the inquisitor, Sprenger, to root out witches. Sprenger, with two others, acting on the authority of the Popes, drew up the famous work, The Witch Hammer, which provided the basis for all subsequent works on the detection and punishment of witches.[188] The folly ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... needed it for a pasture, so he made up his mind that if he couldn't root out the bad plants, he'd crowd them out. So he bought some seed of a kind of grass that has large, strong roots, and he sowed it in the field. As soon as it began to grow he could see that there certainly were not so many daisies there. He kept on another ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith

... real meanin' to smother, The darned things'll up an' mean sunthin' or 'nother. 170 Jeff'son prob'ly meant wal with his 'born free an' ekle,' But it's turned out a real crooked stick in the sekle; It's taken full eighty-odd year—don't you see?— From the pop'lar belief to root out thet idee, An', arter all, suckers on 't keep buddin' forth In the nat'lly onprincipled mind o' the North. No, never say nothin' without you're compelled tu, An' then don't say nothin' thet you can be held tu, Nor don't leave no friction-idees layin' loose For the ign'ant ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... that book infirmary up in the southeast attic. The "Negro Plot" at New York helped to implant a feeling in me which it took Mr. Garrison a good many years to root out. "Thinks I to Myself," an old novel, which has been attributed to a famous statesman, introduced me to a world of fiction which was not represented on the shelves of the library proper, unless perhaps by Coelebs ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... earth, From wave, from sky; and let the wild winds' breath Pass with soft sunlight o'er the lap of land,— Strong wax the fruits of earth, fair teem the kine, Unfailing, for my town's prosperity, And constant be the growth of mortal seed. But more and more root out the impious, For as a gardener fosters what he sows, So foster I this race, whom righteousness Doth fend from sorrow. Such the proffered boon. But I, if wars must be, and their loud clash And carnage, for ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... time was to cut channels through the wire about 15 to 20 feet wide, to permit the infantry to pass. This work is effected by means of shrapnel shells that cut the wire into little strands, then high explosives are used to root out the remaining posts. When we had accomplished our purpose and made everything ready for the charge, "Stand down!" was sounded. The infantry took up the program and dashed over and through the gaps we had made. They cleaned up the first line, then on to the second, smashing their guns, trench ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... cults and the Christian religions were observed, they were explained as degradations; the heathen had somehow wilfully "lost the light." Our business was not to study but, exclusively, to convert them, to root out superstition and carry the torch of revelation to "Souls in heathen darkness lying." To us nowadays it is a commonplace of anthropological research that we must seek for the beginnings of religion in the religions of primitive peoples, but in the last century the orthodox mind was convinced ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... change of that which related to my person, all my cares tendered to render it solid and lasting, by striving to root out from my heart everything susceptible of receiving an impression from the judgment of men, or which, from the fear of blame, might turn me aside from anything good and reasonable in itself. In consequence of the success ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau



Words linked to "Root out" :   destruct, stub, eradicate, destroy, uproot, displace, move



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com