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Stake   /steɪk/   Listen
Stake

noun
1.
(law) a right or legal share of something; a financial involvement with something.  Synonym: interest.  "A stake in the company's future"
2.
A pole or stake set up to mark something (as the start or end of a race track).  Synonym: post.  "The corner of the lot was indicated by a stake"
3.
Instrument of execution consisting of a vertical post that a victim is tied to for burning.
4.
The money risked on a gamble.  Synonyms: bet, stakes, wager.
5.
A strong wooden or metal post with a point at one end so it can be driven into the ground.



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"Stake" Quotes from Famous Books



... rushes into the midst of burning flames to save lives. No man like Jesus had ever felt such anguish and horror at the sight of sin; but instead of flying from it, he came into the midst of it to save the sinner. This was the secret of his agony, the bitterness of his cup. Martyrs at the stake are borne up by their own triumphant self-approval. But Jesus, in his anguish, did not think of his own triumph, but the sin and sorrow of those who afflicted him. "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your children." "Father, forgive them; they know ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... and certainly I should recommend commencing with the West India Question. Singular state of affairs when even Canning can only insinuate his opinion when the very existence of some of our most valuable colonies is at stake, and when even his insinuations are only indulged with an audience on the condition that he favours the House with an introductory discourse of twenty minutes on 'the divine Author of our faith,' and an eloge of equal length on ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... magistrates will look at them—he believes it; believes it so much, and is so certain that others will believe it, that he strongly urged me to escape from the city, and from the country. That, Paolina, knowing my innocence, I would not do. To save myself from the stake I would not have gone away without telling you, my own one, that I had not done this deed. I could not go, and ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... unscathed, with a package of papers from a lawyer, which established his character above par; but all this had cost money, beautiful golden money, and brought him to the very brink of ruin! Mrs. Brown's attack was a desperate and determined effort, and there was more at stake on its success than the reader may surmise. Among gypsy women skill in begging implies the possession of every talent which they most esteem, such as artfulness, cool effrontery, and the power of moving pity or provoking generosity ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... as you well know, is not one of yesterday, nor one I have lightly formed. On Rose, sweet, gentle girl! my heart is set, as firmly as ever heart of man was set on woman. I have no thought, no view, no hope in life, beyond her; and if you oppose me in this great stake, you take my peace and happiness in your hands, and cast them to the wind. Mother, think better of this, and of me, and do not disregard the happiness of which you ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... old uncle, that I can be summoned hither and thither to give advice? Excuse me, but I am going to assert myself and become quite inaccessible; the snow is just right, and I have planned a big journey—a business tour, I might almost call it, very important to me—I have a great deal at stake.... How composite is the mind of man! As I sit talking drivel to myself, and even sometimes saying an angry word aloud in order that Petra may hear it, I am not at all displeased at having received this letter; in fact secretly ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun

... time after the old Earl's death a double compromise was offered on behalf of the young Earl. The money at stake was immense. Would the Italian woman take L10,000, and go her way back to Italy, renouncing all further claim; and would the soi-disant Countess abandon her title, acknowledge her child to be illegitimate, and go her way with another L10,000;—or with L20,000, as was soon hinted by the gentlemen ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... are you going to practise the old style of martyrdom—tie yourself to a stake and let the tide ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... it with a hopeful draught But not encountred, it avail'd him naught. Well, sith encountring, he so faire doth misse, He sets not, till he nine and fortie is. And thinking now his rest would sure be doubled, He lost it by the hand, with which sore troubled, He joynes now all his stocke unto his stake, That of his fortune he full proofe may make. At last both eldest hand and five and fifty, He thinketh now or never (thrive unthrifty.) Now for the greatest rest he hath the push: But Crassus stopt a club, and so was flush: And thus what with the stop, and with the packe, Poore ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... need to be remarkably handsome nor astonishingly intelligent in order to make a rich marriage; the only thing necessary is to will it, to will it coolly, calmly and with all one's force of will-power, to stake all one's chances on that card; in fact to look upon getting married as one's object in life, one's future career. I see that in playing that game it is no more difficult to make an extraordinary marriage than an ordinary one, to get a dowry of fifty thousand pounds than one ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt

... happiness is at stake. Because I cannot but resent a low scandal about a man who wishes ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... a movement for the purpose of seizing the letter and snatching it away from him. This abrupt action convinced Mederic that some important secret was at stake and made him resolve to do his ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... dear," said Ben more gently, flushing and feeling his first qualm. "I would stake my life that she is as beautiful within as without and that you would have a treasure as well as I. It wasn't deserting you. I was thinking of you. I felt she was worthy of you and ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham

... economic guide supports a valid confidence that wise effort will be rewarded by an even more plentiful harvest of human benefit than we now enjoy. Our resources are too many, our principles too dynamic, our purposes too worthy and the issues at stake too immense for us to entertain doubt or fear. But our responsibilities require that we approach this year's business with ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... it recorded—scruple to fight fire with fire. Their existence, of course, was at stake, and there was no public to appeal to. A part of the legal army that rushed to the aid of our adversaries spent the afternoon and most of the night organizing all those who could be induced by one means or another to reverse their sentiments, and in searching for the few who had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... said the old man; "our resentments have long since passed away, and why should not yours? He has now a higher interest to look to than any arising from either love or ambition. His immortal soul is at stake, and if we can reconcile him to heaven, the great object of existence will after all be secured. God forbid that our injuries should stand in the way of his salvation. Allow me," he added, "to bring this letter home, that I may read it to my family, with one exception of course. ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... the early Christians and martyrs have gone through what they did if they had been filled with doubts, and had not known whether they were going to heaven or to perdition after they had been burned at the stake? They must ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody

... has its own variety of fish, which can be distinguished from the fish of any other river; another contends that there is no such difference; a third states that stake nets are exceedingly injurious to the breed of the fish; and a fourth attests that stake nets only catch the fish when they are in the best season, that neither Kelt nor fry are taken in them, and that if they were prohibited it would only be preserving the fish for the grampuses ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett

... time very agreeably; for though Home was now [1758] entirely at the command of Lord Bute, whose nod made him break every engagement—for it was not given above an hour or two before dinner—yet, as he was sometimes at liberty when the noble lord was to dine abroad, like a horse loosened from his stake, he ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... in their hands, tried their very best to inveigle and entrap him, but in vain. Once, indeed, he had very nearly fallen into a horrible pit in which, at the very bottom, in the centre, was a dreadful, long, sharp stake, which, had he fallen, would have been driven through his thick body by its own weight, and he would have perished miserably and ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin

... blood runs red, Let those refuse who may, We'll heed what mighty Nelson said On old Trafalgar day, From cottage, castle, palace, hall, We'll come without delay, At duty's call, and stake our all, To fight, or pay, ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens

... endeavouring to hide emotion under the veil of gaiety. "As to permit you to leave England without once more seeing you, and having one more smile from Mary, I would not, even had the whole honour of my college been at stake. You must not imagine me so entirely devoted to my hooks, dear Mrs. Greville, as to believe I possess neither time nor inclination for the gentler feelings of ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... out there, yet hard enough. Those at home must do their part as well. If we remain true to ourselves, keeping our own house in order, maintaining internal unity, then we have won existence and the future for our Fatherland. Everything is at stake. The German people is called upon now, in these weeks heavy with impending decision, to show that it is worthy ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... horror, like a doomed man at the stake, Jim watched the flaming phalanx advance. And now he saw what they really were; saw that his first, fantastic guess ...
— Spawn of the Comet • Harold Thompson Rich

... gates had communicated with the idols inside. It was no longer on his prostrate altar, but on his funeral pile that Ulpius now stood; and the image that he clasped was the stake to which he was bound. A red glare, dull at first, was now brightening and brightening below him; flames, quick and noiseless, rose and fell, and rose again, at different points, illuminating the interior of the temple with fitful and changing ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... but houd on wi' us; there's many a bonny life at stake, and many a mother's heart a-hangin' on this bit o' hemp. Tak' houd, lass, and give a firm grip, and God remember ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... continually remark that, whenever there is a market for live animals, savages will supply them in any quantities. The means they employ to catch game for their daily food readily admits of their taking them alive. Pit-falls, stake-nets, and springes do not kill. If the savage captures an animal unhurt, and can make more by selling it alive than dead, he will doubtless do so. He is well fitted by education to keep a wild animal in captivity. His mode of pursuing game requires a ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... to be told that twice; he was gone as if his life was at stake; but from that time on he thought of revenge on Erick, and when he met him, he shook his fist at him and said: "You wait! I will get you sometime." But so far he had never met Erick alone, and had never been able to do him the slightest harm. This ...
— Erick and Sally • Johanna Spyri

... not the pleasure of knowing my reader, but I would stake ten to one, that for six months he has been making Utopias, and if so, that he is looking to Government for the realization ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... important enterprise in which this country ever was engaged," he exclaimed, his hands clenched. "Yonder lies the greater America—you lead an army which will make far wider conquest than all our troops won in the Revolutionary War. The stake is larger than any man may dream. I see it—you see it—in time others also will see. Tell me, my son, tell me once more! Come what may, no matter what power shall move you, you will be faithful in this great trust? If I have your promise, then I ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... horrid dream Besets me now awake! Again, again, with a dizzy brain, The human life I take; And my red right hand grows raging hot, Like Cranmer's at the stake. ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... good of you to ask my opinion—to consult with me at all. It is you that have everything at stake. I would like to do my best, but I think if you gave me time—Is there any great urgency? Two days at most ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... of the Apostles, were held in high estimation by the primitive Christians. Of those who wrote under this denomination, the venerable Polycarp and Ignatius, after they had both attained the age of eighty years, sealed their faith in the blood of martyrdom. The former was burned at the stake in Smyrna, and the latter devoured by lions in the amphitheatre of Rome, In the second and third centuries, Christianity numbered among its advocates many distinguished scholars and philosophers, particularly ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... say that," he commented, coolly. "These dogs haven't any prejudice in the matter. I'll stake my life on their telling ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... license an' his brother-in-law sheriff his badge. He's right. I did. I figgered you'd not be anxious to let him have his own way about Molly's claims an' I 'lowed I'd like to be along an' see the excitement. Me an' Ed here'll stake off suthin' for ourselves. I'd jest as soon git some easy money as the rest of 'em. If I do I'll buy another car. This thing"—she surveyed the panting flivver contemptuously—"is nigh worn out and it's ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... ready to marry him in order to save his life!' And even several days after the execution I heard the same thing repeated. This belief, then universal among the lower class, must, I suppose, have arisen from the fact that many French prisoners, condemned to the stake by the savages, had owed their lives to the Indian women who had married them. The sentence on M'Lane, however, was executed in all its barbarity. I saw all with my own eyes, a big student named Boudrault lifting me up from time to ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... he lost the royal favour, and was twice committed to the Tower for his obstinacy, he the while resigning his appointment; under Edward VI. his zeal as a preacher had full scope, but under Mary his mouth was gagged, and he was burnt at the stake along with Ridley, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... The affair looked hopeless from the start; if either of us would have consented to talk in his own language, the other might have understood him, but neither of us could, before that audience, with our reputations at stake. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various

... uncle in the Book of Baronets, and that Gandish jun., probably with an eye to business, made a design of a picture, in which, according to that veracious volume, one of the Newcomes was represented as going cheerfully to the stake at Smithfield, surrounded by some very ill-favoured Dominicans, whose arguments did not appear to make the least impression upon the martyr of the Newcome family. Sandy M'Collop devised a counter picture, wherein the barber-surgeon ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... million people who make up this great city, probably six hundred thousand are already plunged deep in the abyss where lurk Want and Crime, or trembling on its verge, and the number who thus "live from hand to mouth," who feel that they have "no stake in the country,"—that God and man are against them— is ever on the increase. That verdant, sunkissed crust upon which Arnolds complacently saunter and Talmages proudly strut, grows thinner year by year, while the fires below wax ever hotter, ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... remember that it is the principle at stake—viz., the recognition by a legal tribunal, as lawful or innocent of any attempt to violate the laws, or to take the law into our own hands: this it is and the mortal taint which is thus introduced into the public morality of a Christian land, thus authentically introduced; thus sealed and ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... of 1604 was not formally repealed until 1736. In Scotland the last witch legally executed was in 1722. Captain Ross, Sheriff of Sutherland, has the doubtful honour of having condemned her to the stake. But fifty years later than this—1773—the Associated Presbytery passed a resolution deploring the fact that witchcraft was falling into disrepute. In Germany the last witch was executed in 1749, by decapitation. The last trial for witchcraft in Massachusetts was ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... accompanied by a body of Highlanders. On the morning of November 25th, the army advanced with the provincials in the front. They entered upon an Indian path. "Upon each side of which a number of stakes, with the bark peeled off, were stuck into the earth, and upon each stake was fixed the head and kilt of a Highlander who had been killed or taken prisoner at Grant's defeat. The provincials, being front, obtained the first view of these horrible spectacles, which it may readily be believed, excited no kindly feelings in their breasts. They passed along, however, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... out for answer a "Chi lo sa!" Meanwhile our attention was fitfully resuscitated by a rider in costume doing a bit of turf, by an unsaddled racer led across the ground, or by men on horseback carrying small flags to stake at the different leaps; sometimes by an English oath, startling the Genius loci or whoever heard it; or more agreeably by a display of voluble young countrywomen, standing tiptoe on their carriage seats, eager to see the first fall, and permitting the young men ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... gave a graphic account when he came to write the history of this expedition. [171] All, it seems, had certain customs in common. Every man drank heavily, ate to repletion and gambled. They would hazard first their property and then themselves. A negro would stake his aged mother against a cow. As for morality, neither the word nor the thing existed among them. Their idea of perfect bliss was total intoxication. When ill, they applied to a medicine man, who having received a fee ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... take up, the Moral Law holds the same place in his thoughts. It is the one statable revelation of truth which he is ready to stake his all upon. "The illusion that strikes me as the masterpiece in that ring of illusions which our life is, is the timidity with which we assert our moral sentiment. We are made of it, the world is built by it, things endure as they share it; all beauty, all health, all intelligence exist ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman

... consumed that there was very little of it left. At short intervals he sensed an odour, as of something burning, that stuck in his nostrils. That odour did not come from any cook stove in the Ashdales! It was a salutation from the great stake of pine needles, and moss, and brushwood that sizzled ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof

... and evil qualities by the pound. Get a good name and you may write trash. Get a bad one and you may write like Homer, without pleasing a single reader. I am, perhaps, l'enfant gate de succes, but I am brought to the stake,[305] and must ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... the 'basket fence.' Stakes are driven in, and their pliant 'stuff' interwoven, as in a stake hedge in England." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... But it was not intended. It was foreseen that there would be inhabitants, neither planters nor taxable, who, though free as the winds, might be unsafe depositories of popular power; and the design was, to admit no man to the freedom of the province who had not a stake in it. That the clause which relates to freedom by service was not intended for manumitted slaves is evident, from the fact that there were none; and it regarded not slavery, but limited servitude expired by efflux ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... words were spoken with a soft and tranquil smile—a smile in which glazing eyes and agonising hearts had often beheld the ghastly omen of the torture and the stake. ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... them back to St Ignace, beating them as they went. There they stripped the two priests and tied them to stakes. Brebeuf knew that his hour had come. Him the savages made the special object of their diabolical cruelty. And, standing at the stake amid his yelling tormentors, he bequeathed to the world an example of fortitude sublime, unsurpassed, and unsurpassable. Neither by look nor cry nor movement did he give sign of the agony he was suffering. To the reviling and abuse of the fiends he replied ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... simple plan; it promised to yield a high stake quickly. A final fling at illicit activity; then virtuous reformation, with Perona ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... want?" snapped the criminologist, as he clenched the cane tightly and held the handkerchief in his left hand. There was no reply. The men realized that he knew their purpose—one dropped to a knee position as the other sprang forward. The famous football toe shot forward with more at stake than ever in the days when the grandstands screeched for a field goal. At the same instant he swung the loaded cane upon the shoulders of the ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... Bersi were in the forefront, each with a large force of followers behind him. The jarl summoned them to give up Grettir, and not to bring trouble on themselves. They repeated their former offers, but the jarl would not listen to them. Thorfinn and Thorsteinn said that more was at stake for the jarl than the taking of Grettir's life. "One fate shall fall upon us all," they cried, "and men shall say that you have given much for the life of one man when we are all laid low ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown

... no longer, your highness," cried Ephraim, passionately. "My honor and credit are at stake. Count Knobelsdorf gave me his sacred promise that at the end of six months my money with interest should be returned. I believed him, because he spoke in the name of the prince royal. I now need this money for my business. ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... is, cruel youth. But to show you I'm still not incapable, degraded as I am, of an act of faith, I'll tie my vanity to the stake for you and burn it to ashes. You must come and see me—you must come and see us," the Master quickly substituted. "Mrs. St. George is charming; I don't know whether you've had any opportunity to talk with her. She'll be delighted to see you; she likes ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James

... "The King held in his hand the lot of Jerusalem" i.e. the arrow whereon the city-name was written. The Arabs use it for casting lots with ten azlam or headless arrows (for dice) three being blanks and the rest notched from one to seven. They were thrown by a "Zrib" or punter and the stake was generally a camel. Amongst so excitable a people as the Arabs, this game caused quarrels and bloodshed, hence its prohibition: and the theologians, who everywhere and at all times delight in burdening human nature, have extended the command, which is rather admonitory than prohibitive, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... at stake," she said, "or I would put no other condition than my heart recommends. But you have only to say so much to the porter, and he will let you ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... various distances along the course; and judges stood guard at the turning stake, to make sure that every contestant went the full limit ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... all this, though also partly preceding it, has been the growing recognition by the western nations, and by Japan, of the imminence of great political issues at stake in the near future of China. Whether regarded as a field for commerce, or for the exercise of the varied activities by which the waste places of the earth are redeemed and developed, it is evidently a matter of economical—and therefore of political—importance ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... of them, and we in England had been very much misled by Mrs. Stenhouse and other travellers. As to plurality of wives, not two per cent. of their whole 200,000 had more than one wife. His own father, a rich merchant and a church-hierarch, a "stake" of the tabernacle (much as we should say a pillar), had but one—his own dear mother—and he scarcely knew any one with more. It was quite a European misjudgment that many followed Brigham Young's doctrine, which never had been Joseph ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... low, but his tone conveyed the malice and the menace of a man who had been nursing a grudge for a long time. "Two years ago his newspaper letters and his rant killed that Consolidated project, and I had a contingent fee of fifty thousand dollars at stake; as it was, I got only a little old regular lobby fee and my expense money. And the power hasn't been developed by the infernal, dear, protected people, has it?" he sneered. "If the Consolidated folks had been let alone and given their franchise, we'd now be marketing over our high-tension ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... was playing a desperate game but he had a great deal at stake. The fact is, in all his other shows he had never enjoyed the luxury of a treasurer. He did not fully comprehend the meaning of the term; a door-keeper was all he required and when Harrison continually ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... first (I mean the greater Fowle) with Nets, observe in general this: Come two hours before their feeding hours, Morning and Evening; and spreading your Net on the Ground smooth and flat, stake the two lower ends firm, and let the upper ends be extended on the long Cord; of which the further end must be fastned to the ground, three Fathom from the Net, the stake in a direct Line with the lower Verge ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett

... was far more at stake here than the fate of fifty colonists. In a sense E.H.Q. itself was the stake. The whole science of ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... "Iron Bull," was in favor of burning the hated Uncapapa at a stake, then and there; but "Spotted Eagle," "Blind Owl," and "Hungry Wolf" called attention to the youth and bravery of the captive, who had endured the lashing without any sign of fear. Then the two other Crows took the same view. This decided poor Moccasin's fate; and he understood ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... advice. We continued playing, and the more I sipped my glass, the bolder I became. My balls flew beyond the cushions. I got angry; I was impertinent to the marker who scored for us. I raised the stake; in short, I behaved like a little boy just set free from school. Thus the time passed very quickly. At last Zourine glanced at the clock, put down his cue, and told me I had lost a hundred roubles.[13] ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... needless to say that Hiram McKinstry was, in the intervals of stake-driving and stock-hunting, heavily contented with this latest evidence of his daughter's progress. He even intimated to the master that her reading being an accomplishment that could be exercised ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... earnest for either humility or vanity, but I do entreat those who hold the keys of life and death to listen to me also for this once. I ask no personal favor; but I beg to be heard in behalf of the women whose lives are at stake, until some stronger voice shall plead ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... he exclaimed self-accusingly. He whipped a knee with the hat. "Now, I've gone and scared you! Say, honest! There isn't a bear in a hundred miles—I'd stake ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... that are grand and true, All things that a man should be, If you promise me this, I would stake my life To be ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... gradations of rank, the party was made at an open window of the chateau, the laird sitting on his chair in the inside, the beggar on a stool in the yard; and they played on the window-sill. The stake was a considerable parcel of silver. The author expressing some surprise, Dr. Douglas observed, that the laird was no doubt a humorist or original; but that many decent persons in those times would, like him, have thought ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various

... his heeding. He was not accustomed to being denied, this man; and there was no contesting the obvious fact that now a confidence was being withheld. The latent antagonism aroused with a bound at the thought. Something more than mere curiosity was at stake, something which he magnified until it obscured his horizon, warped hopelessly his vision of right or wrong. He was of the conquering Anglo-Saxon race, and this other who refused him was an Indian. Racial supremacy ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... from telling him that with so much at stake I was unwilling to accept even treaty assurances on that point. He went on. "The whole world is mad with desire to slay. But I would rather have my son killed ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... to the opinions of others, Holcroft only knew that he was in sore straits—that all which made his existence a blessing was at stake. ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe

... rising and falling of the blaze, the stone faces showed as if they were in torment. When great masses of stone and timber fell, the face with the two dints in the nose became obscured: anon struggled out of the smoke again, as if it were the face of the cruel Marquis, burning at the stake and ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... Mr. Warrington?" cries my Lord March, "Have you lost Virginia, too? Who has won it? I always had a fancy to play you myself for that stake." ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... "butchers," the popcorn boys, the lemonade venders,{sic} and the exhortations of the side-show "spieler," whose flying banners bore the painted reproductions of his "freaks." Here and there stood unhitched chariots, half filled trunks, trapeze tackle, paper hoops, stake pullers or other "properties" necessary to ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo

... winning as all a part of the game. He hates to lose. He hated to lose even a friendly game of billiards in the Marion Club with his old friend Colonel Christian, father of his secretary, though the stake was only ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... design and attack the fabric which has withstood so many storms of our corporate and national life. That in itself would justify all our endeavours. But there is something even larger and worthier at stake in this great ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... said the owner, "there isn't a man with a horse in this stake that doesn't think he's going to win; and when it's all over we'll see Lucretia's number go up. Grant's a fool," he added, viciously. "Didn't he break Fisher-didn't he break every other man that ever stuck ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... well as English, stand with the French in the vanguard. Kant and Herder, from different points of view, thought it out perhaps more thoroughly than any one else at that time; but the French believed in it as a nation and were willing to stake their lives and souls on the belief. Thus Turgot, before the Revolution, declared that 'the total mass of the human race marches continually though sometimes slowly towards an ever-increasing perfection'. And ...
— Progress and History • Various

... girl, what a signal punishment hangs over thee! Thou wilt trust thyself within the toils of the grand deceiver. Thou wilt enter the list with his subtleties. Vain and arrogant, thou fearest not thy own weakness. Thou wilt stake thy eternal lot upon thy triumph in argument against one who, in spite of all his candour and humility, has his pride and his passions engaged on ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... Church of Christ. Who are they that confessed their Lord before men, in the early ages of the gospel? "Within a few years after Christ, the Christian martyrologies are full of the names of female sufferers, who, for Jesus' sake, went to the stake, with all the courage and inflexibility ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... cheery view of life, 'why, look about her, to be sure. And if Mrs. M. is an old lady, there'll be all the more Indian cabinets and screens, and japanned tables, and knick-knacks, and lap-dogs. Keep your eyes open, Miss Mary. I've never seen the good lady or her belongings, but I'll stake my best hat on the japan ware and the lap-dog. Now, how soon can you ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... languor into interest. Almost opposite to him a small, white-gloved hand holding a five-louis note was thrust forward between the shoulders of two men seated at the table. Wethermill leaned forward and shook his head with a smile. With a gesture he refused the stake. But he was too late. The fingers of the hand had opened, the note fluttered down on to the cloth, the ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason

... whole course of the war they had the fate of their country more in their hands than it is to be hoped will ever be the case with our future representatives; and from the greatness of the prize at stake, and the eagerness of the party which lost it, it may well be supposed that the use of other means than force would not have been scrupled. Yet we know by happy experience that the public trust ...
— The Federalist Papers

... to try to get the boat out where it will float. It's such fun to have it bob up and down," replied the girl addressed. She had a long pole and was pushing the boat off from the shore. It was fastened to a stake, so it could only career around a little, and Dimple's friend Callie Spear assured the little girls that it was perfectly secure, and so they gave themselves up ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard

... at the period of the Reformation suffered much for Christ; some pined long in prison, some died at the stake. These were first, and we who contribute a few pounds to a missionary society, or teach a Sabbath school, or visit some poor families, are last in respect to the quantity of our doing and suffering in the Saviour's cause. But if any of those first were proud of their sufferings, they will be last ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... furious rate. By eleven o'clock everything was finished or going forward briskly. The plum pudding was bubbling in the pot, the turkey—Burton's plumpest—was sizzling in the oven. The shelf in the pantry bore two mince pies upon which Alexina was willing to stake her culinary reputation. And Stephen had gone to the train ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... get the stake in return," said Yefim with a low laugh, and quickly jumped to his feet. "But they ought to go, Uncle Mikhail, before anybody sees them. We'll distribute the books among the people; the authorities will begin ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... might be indulged with the privilege of taking the air. The event justified their conception; on the very first day of their watch they saw her approach, accompanied by her duenna. Dolly and her attendant immediately tied their horses to a stake, and retired into a thicket, which Aurelia did not fail to enter. Dolly forthwith appeared, and, taking her by the hand, led her to the horses, one of which she mounted in the utmost hurry and trepidation, while the countryman bound the duenna with a cord prepared for the purpose, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... this venerable old man, as they were of no common nature, so it would be injurious to the credit of our professed history of martyrdom to pass them over in silence. It was observed by the spectators, that, after finishing his prayer at the stake, to which he was only tied, but not nailed as usual, as he assured them he should stand immoveable, the flames, on their kindling the fagots, encircled his body, like an arch, without touching him; and the executioner, on seeing ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... seconded this suggestion. "I would rather be burned at the stake than suffer these agonies," she confessed. "My bones are broken. The devil is in this horse." She began to weep softly. "Go, senora. Save yourself! It is my accursed fat stomach that hinders me. Tell Benito that I perished breathing his name, and see to it, when he remarries, that ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... next stopped at the mouth of a stream where, on his previous voyage, he had heard of gold. The party who went ashore to search for it soon came back aghast. They had found, instead, two bodies lashed to a stake in the form of a cross. The men were hardly recognizable, but the scraps of clothing looked Spanish. The ominous news ran from ship to ship and gloom began to settle over ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley

... like a pale shaft of light; and under his heavy-fringed lashes, at moments, his level gaze encountered her's with a slow narrowing of lids—as though there was more than one game in progress, more than one stake being played for under the dull rose ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... before the first attack on the camp, Lee was summoned to Cedar City by Isaac Haight, president of that Stake, second only to Colonel Dame in church authority in southern Utah, and a lieutenant colonel in the militia under Dame. To make their conference perfectly secret, they took some blankets and passed the night in an old iron works. ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... amusement of the king, who, ambitious of surpassing his sister sovereign, Queen Mary of England, and to exhibit his love for religion, manages to put to death ten times as many as she ventures to send to the stake, unless they recant, when they will have the honour of being strangled or hung instead," answered Leslie, in a nonchalant tone. "He and his counsellors are determined to extirpate heresy; but as the Protestants are numbered by hundreds of thousands, and as there ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston

... For the headstrong wretch Who in the mail of innate hardihood Would shield himself, and battle for his sins, There is the stake on earth, and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... my nieve did shake, Each bristled hair stood like a stake, When wi' an eldritch stour, quaick—quaick— Amang the springs, Awa ye squatter'd like a ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... I am fixed here. I have grown tired of this sort of hostage life, and I am going North with you. So, Barney, I beg of you to be careful, for other lives than your own are at stake. I should be specially hateful to the authorities if I were retaken—for the whole Southern people clamor to have an example made of the assassins of the President, as ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... with all the saints, in robes so bright that our eyes will grow dim to look on them. There shall we meet those who in this world have stood out for the faith, and have been burnt on the stake, and thrown to wild beasts, for the love they bore to the Lord. They will not harm us, but will greet us with love, for they all walk in the sight ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin

... in dry weather, syringe in the evenings whenever practicable, and keep the borders free from weeds by surface hoeings; stake and tie the plants as required, and pinch out the tips of the shoots until they have become sufficiently bushy by frequent branching. Pinching should not be practised later than the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... Norwegian vessel arrived upon the coast of Ermonie laden with a freight of hawks and treasure (hawks at that period were often worth their weight in gold). The captain challenged anyone to a game of chess with him for a stake of twenty shillings, and Rohand and his sons, with Tristrem, went on board to play with him. Tristrem moved so skilfully that he overcame the captain, and won from him, in many games, six hawks and the sum of a hundred pounds. While the games were proceeding ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... them, when journeying through Europe to distribute the Cross to whole armies of warriors. Not only did he fail to cross the Channel for the purpose of rousing the Christian enthusiasm of a people ever ready to hearken to a call to arms when a noble cause was at stake; he did not think even of writing a single letter to any bishop or abbot in Ireland, asking them to preach the holy ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... he began at once to pile up a reserve in government bonds for emergency purposes, which he decided should be not less than eight or nine million dollars, for he feared financial storms as well as financial reprisal, and where so much was at stake he did not propose ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... famines is of such vast importance to the people, the Government, and all who have any stake in India, that I think it well to offer here some remarks on them, and also suggest some measures for their prevention, or perhaps I should ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... heroism, and intrepidity may be silent, spiritual, or passive; they may be exhibited by a martyr at the stake. Prowess and valor imply both daring and doing; we do not speak of the prowess of a martyr, a child, or a passive sufferer. Valor meets odds or perils with courageous action, doing its utmost to conquer at any risk or cost; prowess has power adapted to the need; dauntless valor ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... He shocked the company by maintaining that the attributes of God were two,—power and risibility; and that it was the duty of every pious man to keep up the comedy. And I have known gentlemen of great stake in the community, but whose sympathies were cold,—presidents of colleges, and governors, and senators,—who held themselves bound to sign every temperance pledge, and act with Bible societies, and missions, and peacemakers, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... existence of the party is at stake—its existence as the democratically self-governed party of the working class, laboring to awaken and educate the proletarian masses and to express their class interests ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto



Words linked to "Stake" :   visual signal, winning post, reversion, right, vested interest, double up, part, play, parlay, mark, share, law, put on the line, fee, kitty, lay on the line, jurisprudence, fasten, equity, secure, pot, kill, undivided interest, starting post, insurable interest, jackpot, undivided right, security interest, pool, portion, pierce, percentage, instrument of execution, ante, risk, gamble, fix, terminable interest, controlling interest



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