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Sweeping   /swˈipɪŋ/   Listen
Sweeping

adjective
1.
Taking in or moving over (or as if over) a wide area; often used in combination.  "A wide-sweeping view of the river"
2.
Ignoring distinctions.  Synonym: wholesale.  "Wholesale destruction"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Sweeping" Quotes from Famous Books



... as was the Calvert policy, did not altogether escape Indian troubles. She had to contend with no such able chief as Opechancanough, and she suffered no sweeping massacres. But after the first idyllic year or so there set in a small, constant friction. So fast did the Maryland colonists arrive that soon there was pressure of population beyond those first purchased ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... in everything he did. If he hated a man he hated him, his kith and kin and all who bore his name. His friendship was similarly sweeping, and his regard for William Simpson prompted him to write subsequently of the law as "a profession which abounds with honourable men, and in which I believe there are fewer scamps than in any other. The most honourable men I have ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... flaming hair, streaming with brightness, and the locks of his beard Curl'd into clouds of heat, sweeping the heavens, spread all over the sky: Who shall abide his face, fearful and deadly, when he devours the land, Angry with man and beast, horribly raging, hungry for sacrifice? Bel, the prince, the king ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle; he thought his whistle was answered; it was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw something white, hanging in the midst of the tree: he paused, and ceased whistling; but, on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where the tree had been scathed ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... now before the wondering eyes of a Thomas Jefferson. The muddy street had vanished to give place to a smooth black roadway, as springy under foot as a forest path, and as clean as the pike after a sweeping summer storm. The shops, with their false fronts and shabby lean-to awnings, were gone, or going, and in their room majestic vastnesses in brick and cut stone were rising, by their own might, as it would seem, out of disorderly mountains ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... was two days after my husband died— Two days! And the earth still raw above him. And I was sweeping the carpet in their hall. In number four—the room with the red wall-paper— Some chorus girls and men were singing that song 'They'll soon be lighting candles Round a box with silver handles'—and hearing them sing it I started to cry. Just then he came ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken

... I carry this consideration?" she laughed, with a sweeping motion to her narrow lingerie gown that could not so much as ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott

... gave the word to attack. The army of the Fronde fought with fury. "I did not see a Prince of Conde," Turenne used to say; "I saw more than a dozen." The king's soldiers had entered the houses, thus turning the barricades; Marshal Ferte had just arrived with the artillery, and was sweeping Rue St. Antoine. The princes' army was about to be driven back to the foot of the walls of Paris, when the cannon of the Bastille, replying all on a sudden to the volleys of the royal troops, came like a thunderbolt on M. de Turenne; the Porte St. Antoine opened, and the Parisians, under ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... written in the year 1918 would be complete without a word about this awful conflagration which is now sweeping over the earth. ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards

... daughter, when the discovery is made, freezes up into an iceberg of contempt; which is indeed a very womanly thing to do. The mother explodes into pulverising cynicism and practicality; which is also very womanly. The dialogue is drastic and sweeping; the daughter says the trade is loathsome; the mother answers that she loathes it herself; that every healthy person does loathe the trade by which she lives. And beyond question the general effect ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... which Mr. Robinson had arrived in a cab ten minutes before, dressed in a light-blue coat and double-milled kersey pantaloons, white neckerchief, pumps, and dress-gloves, his manner denoting, as appeared from the evidence of the housemaid at No. 23, who was sweeping the door-steps at the time, a considerable degree of nervous excitement. It was also hastily reported on the same testimony, that the cook who opened the door, wore a large white bow of unusual dimensions, in a much ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... with ranks well closed up, without music, and almost noiselessly, they moved in the gray light of the early December morning, out of the cedars, across the open fields, hurling the full weight of their advancing columns upon our right, with all the dash of Southern troops, sweeping on with rapid stride, and wild yells of triumph, to what appeared to them an easy final victory; or, later in the afternoon, when our troops that had been driven from the field early in the morning, ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist

... lustre. A deep, thoughtful, and half-melancholy calm seemed unalterably fixed in their majestic and commanding gaze. His step and mien were peculiarly sedate and lofty, and something foreign in the fashion and the sober hues of his sweeping garments added to the impressive effect of his quiet countenance and stately form. Each of the young men, in saluting the new-comer, made mechanically, and with care to conceal it from him, a slight gesture or sign with their fingers; for Arbaces, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... uneasily of the great seas of snow and ice sweeping inexorably toward each other since the Earth had reversed on its axis in the great catastrophe a millennium ago. Now, summer and winter alike brought paralyzing gales and blizzards, heralded by the sleety snow in which the woman's ...
— The Last Supper • T. D. Hamm

... his hand as he walked and hit the rail a sudden blow, viciously, as though she could be made to feel pain. And yet he could not do without er; he needed her; he must hang on to her tooth and nail to keep his head above water till the expected flood of fortune came sweeping up and landed him safely on the high shore ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... have heard them. As it was, their cat-like tread was distinctly audible. Like two monstrous black cats they came round the table toward me, and for the first time I perceived that the smaller of the two dragged something along the floor behind him. As it trailed along over the floor with a soft, sweeping sound, I somehow got the impression that it was a large dead thing with outstretched wings, or a large, spreading cedar branch. Whatever it was, I was unable to see it even in outline, and I was too ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... the present moment to interest a traveler in Canada. The first I have named, and the second is the Grand Trunk Railway. I have already stated what is the course of this line. It runs from the Western State of Michigan to Portland, on the Atlantic, in the State of Maine, sweeping the whole length of Canada in its route. It was originally made by three companies. The Atlantic and St. Lawrence constructed it from Portland to Island Pond, on the borders of the States. The St. Lawrence and Atlantic took it from the southeastern ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... disdainfully; 'but, you see, it's too late for that. Twenty-four hours before the beast comes the sea-water runs away, and great waves of thick treacle come sweeping round the kingdoms. No boat can live ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... delightful company," he resumed; "then I don't know how many weeks of the oppressive heat here you would have to endure, instead of enjoying the cool, refreshing breezes sweeping over Nantucket. Surely, you cannot give it all up ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... Merdaille blunder) and the sagest citations of Festina lente, they take him through Asia Minor to the Euphrates and Arabia, while the other army (that which has annihilated Grandgousier) comes round by the northern route, sweeping all Europe from Brittany and the British Isles to Constantinople, where the great rendezvous is made and the universal empire established, Picrochole graciously giving his advisers Syria and Palestine as ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... his text; and now, whether I had made an eloquent speech in behalf of freedom or not, his was one never to be forgotten by those who heard it. Those who had heard Mr. Garrison oftenest, and had known him longest, were astonished. It was an effort of unequaled power, sweeping down, like a very tornado, every opposing barrier, whether of sentiment or opinion. For a moment, he possessed that almost fabulous inspiration, often referred to but seldom attained, in which a public meeting is transformed, as it were, into ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... as on many others, the censure that has been passed upon the Church of the eighteenth century has been far too sweeping and far too severe. When one hears the sermons of the period stigmatised without any qualification as 'miserable moral essays,' and 'as unspeakably and indescribably bad,' one calls to mind almost indignantly the great preachers of the time, whose sermons have been ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... Cuna for cradles, Diverra for sweeping houses, Nodina knots, Prema, Pramunda, Hymen, Hymeneus, for weddings; Comus the god of good fellows, gods of silence, of comfort, Hebe goddess of youth, Mena menstruarum, &c. male and female gods, of all ages, sexes and dimensions, with beards, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... rose high with waving grain: With bended sickles stand the reaper train: Here, stretch'd in ranks, the level'd swaths are found; Sheaves heaped on sheaves here thicken up the ground. With sweeping stroke the mowers strow the lands; The gath'rers follow, and collect in bands: And last the children, in whose arms are borne (Too short to gripe them) the brown sheaves of corn. The rustic monarch of the field descries, With silent glee, the heaps around ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt

... sang from the corner of the big car where Derry had her penned in, with the fragrance of her violets sweeping over him as he sat next to her. "I want Emily always, but Daddy has to have a nurse in the office, and Emily won't give up her toys. And in the meantime Hilda and I are ready to scratch each other's eyes out. Please keep her as long ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey

... depths of the Indian Ocean than that. We have not been able to do all that we intended for this country, owing to the jealousy and slave-hunting of the Portuguese. They have hindered us effectually by sweeping away the population into slavery. Thousands have perished, and wherever we go human skeletons appear. I suppose that our Government could not prevail on the Portuguese to put a stop to this; so we are recalled. I am ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... reef and ocean-floor ecosystems. drift-net fishing - done with a net, miles in extent, that is generally anchored to a boat and left to float with the tide; often results in an over harvesting and waste of large populations of non- commercial marine species (by-catch) by its effect of "sweeping the ocean clean." ecosystems - ecological units comprised of complex communities of organisms and their specific environments. effluents - waste materials, such as smoke, sewage, or industrial waste which are released ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... needed. It remains for us to decide whether to permit Russia to bring about the explosion or—bring it about ourselves. The soviet movement is irresistible, it will sweep England eventually as it has swept Russia, as it is now sweeping Germany, Hungary, Austria, Italy, as it must soon sweep France and Spain. Our power in England is great; even so, we could hope to do no more than delay the soviet movement were we to set ourselves against it—we could never hope to stop ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... of "The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John," now at Burlington House. Though little known to the general public, this large drawing on carton, or stiff paper, is one of the greatest of London's treasures, as it reveals the sweeping line of Leonardo's powerful draughtsmanship. It was in the Pompeo Leoni, Arconati, Casnedi, and Udney Collections before passing ...
— Leonardo da Vinci • Maurice W. Brockwell

... Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, went out in the hall, and when she came back, with her tail all tied up in a pink ribbon, (for she was sweeping) ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis

... like wolves—all in a pack. Where they had suffered most, there they charged in most hotly. This was hard for the defender, but it held them from sweeping on into Britain. ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

... for the last part of this speech. Now she made a sweeping gesture, closing her hand as if she had clutched their destinies in the palm of her hand and could throw it ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... westward from its source near Ararat to Malatiyeh, while the Tigris from Diarbekr "goes eastward to Assyria." The rivers thus appear as if never about to meet; but at Malatiyeh, the course of the Euphrates is changed. Sweeping suddenly to the south-east, this stream passes within a few miles of the source of the Tigris below Lake Goljik, and forces a way through the mountains towards the south, pursuing a tortuous course, but still seeming as if it intended ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... greatest glories, Canterbury began to decline, and the dissolution of the two great monasteries and the demolishing of Becket's shrine must have been to the city, on a much larger scale, what the sweeping away of all the Shakespearean landmarks and relics from Stratford-on-Avon of to-day would imply. Nevertheless the city could afford to present Queen Elizabeth with l. 30 in a scented purse when she came thither ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home

... I spoke, she turned, and sweeping aside her gown that it might not touch me, she moved rapidly towards the steps we had just descended. Full of remorse, ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... feel a mile high, to be part of a thing like this," Jimmie said, sweeping a hand over the scene. "It makes little old New York look like thirty cents," he added, ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... transmuting for his own purposes the labours of other workers in the field that for the moment engaged his attention. Most of Shakespeare's sonnets were produced in 1594 under the incitement of that freakish rage for sonnetteering which, taking its rise in Italy and sweeping over France on its way to England, absorbed for some half-dozen years in this country a greater volume of literary energy than has been applied to sonnetteering within the same space of time here or elsewhere before or since. The thousands of sonnets that were circulated in England between ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... wherein a creature holds correspondence with his Creator; and wherein the soul of a saint gets near to God, is entertained with great delight, and, as it were, dwells with his heavenly Father."1 God, when manifest in the flesh, hath given us a solemn, sweeping declaration, embracing all prayer—private, social, and public—at all times and seasons, from the creation to the final consummation of all things—"God is a Spirit, and they that worship him MUST WORSHIP HIM IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH" ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... to promote progress in medicine, and to hold before the physician a grand ideal of his profession. In this his views are wide and far-reaching, based on the relationship which man bears to nature as a whole; but in his sweeping condemnations he not only rejected Galenic therapeutics and Galenic anatomy, but condemned dissections of any kind. He laid the cause of all diseases at the door of the three mystic elements—salt, sulphur, and mercury. In health he supposed these to be mingled in the body so as to be ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... nervous about the intentions of Greece, it was the fear of Greek hostility, carefully nursed by Greek diplomacy, that checked the Germans and the Bulgars from following up their advantage and sweeping the Franco-British troops into the sea. It was the same attitude of Greece that made the enemy hesitate to break into Macedonia during the following months, and gave the ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... Charlie remembered was "toting cawn" for his mother "to drap", and sweeping the yards up at the "big house". He also recalls that many times when he was in the yard at the "big house", "Ole Miss" would call him in and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... note about a quarter of an inch out of its envelope until she could just see a line of the writing and then quickly thrust it in again, put the envelope on the mantel above the "parlor heater" and resolutely went on with her sweeping. From time to time she stopped her work and looked at it just to be sure that it was still there and at last took it up in her fingers again, a prey to a more lively curiosity than any she had ever known. She put the envelope down again and turning her back to it went into ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... veterans, eager for their promised rewards, were on the eve of mutiny. In a short time Octavian was sufficiently recovered to show himself. But he could find no other means of satisfying the greedy soldiery than by a confiscation of lands more sweeping than that which followed the proscription of Sylla. The towns of Cisalpine Gaul were accused of favoring Dec. Brutus, and saw nearly all their lands handed over to new possessors. The young poet, Vergil, lost his little patrimony, but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... queen-wasp) making hexagonal cells, if she were to work alternately on the inside and outside of two or three cells commenced at the same time, always standing at the proper relative distance from the parts of the cells just begun, sweeping spheres or cylinders, ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... face declined and was unseen; her hair Fell in long tresses like the weeping willow, Sweeping the marble underneath her chair, Or rather sofa (for it was all pillow, A low, soft ottoman), and black Despair Stirred up and down her bosom like a billow, Which rushes to some shore whose shingles check Its farther course, but must ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... unfailing touch of modesty that was not least among his charms. "But to me it sometimes seems as if a curtain hung between their eyes and India. And—it's catching. In some subtle way this little concentrated world, within a world, seems to draw one's receptiveness away from it all. Is that very sweeping, sir?" ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... of his fellow-prisoners said that Lanier's flute "was an angel imprisoned with us to cheer and console us." To the few who are left to remember him at that time, the waves of the Chesapeake, with the sandy beach sweeping down to kiss the waters, and the far-off dusky pines, are still ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... when the Spaniards, quitting the shelter of their mountains, descended into the open plains of Leon and Castile, they found themselves exposed to the predatory incursions of the Arab cavalry, who, sweeping over the face of the country, carried off in a single foray the hard-earned produce of a summer's toil. It was not until they had reached some natural boundary, as the river Douro, or the chain of the Guadarrama, that they were enabled, by constructing ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... however, instead of running straight ahead, he made a wide, sweeping curve, tending back toward the river and the lakes. As before, only somewhat sooner, his alarm subsided and his confidence, along with his curiosity, returned. He repeated his former manoeuvre of doubling back a little ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... insisted, that, nothing could demonstrate the turpitude of any system more surely than the fact, that MAN—made in the image of God—but a little lower than the angels—crowned with glory and honor, and set over the works of God's hands—his mind sweeping in an instant from planet to planet, from the sun of one system to the sun of another, even to the great centre sun of them all—contemplating the machinery of the universe "wheeling unshaken" in the awful and mysterious ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... interest in the movement, as they grew to understand its true significance. Stanhope seemed to be fairly sizzling with a new and novel energy. Even the meeting of the Women's Club that afternoon was given up partly to a discussion of the merits of the Boy Scout wave then sweeping over the land; and ladies who had been decidedly averse to such a thing found their eyes ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... stood looking out. It was a wonderful moment. There were floods of molten gold covering the west, as if a glorious tide was sweeping over the world. A deep, rich yellow light filled the air; the birds flying across the tops of the houses ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... "if you have never been away from this." He made a sweeping gesture over the restricted English scenery, pampered and brought ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... to please him?" inquired Helen, sweeping back the golden curls from her forehead ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... among the flower-shrubs, or at blind-man's-buff with garlands over their eyes, or at whatever other games had been found out while Mother Earth was in her babyhood. When life is all sport, toil is the real play. There was absolutely nothing to do. A little sweeping and dusting about the cottage, I suppose, and the gathering of fresh flowers (which were only too abundant everywhere), and arranging them in vases,—and poor little Pandora's day's work was over. And then, for the rest of the day, there ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... fresh greenery of the forests faded into somber belts of blackness. Though it was high summer in this desolate region, heavy showers of hail and sleet alternated with drenching rain. At low-water, though the Kansas floated securely in a depth of twenty fathoms, a yellow current sweeping past her starboard quarter showed how accurately Courtenay had read the tokens of the inlet. Many a swollen torrent, and, perhaps, one or two fair-sized streams at the head of the bay, contributed this flood ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... moment it would die away, and the traveller would begin to delude himself into the belief that, exhausted with its previous fury, it had quietly laid itself down to rest, when, whoo! he could hear it growling and whistling in the distance, and on it would come rushing over the hill-tops, and sweeping along the plain, gathering sound and strength as it drew nearer, until it dashed with a heavy gust against horse and man, driving the sharp rain into their ears, and its cold damp breath into their very ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... Policy, which, as I think, injuriously to the interests and dignity of the Country, there is a disposition in other quarters to pursue; but notwithstanding all this. I cannot consent to stand forward as one of the Authors and Supporters of John Russell's sweeping alterations. Yours sincerely, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... do," I replied, "I have seen the ship all the time, that black ship with its sail of red flame. I have seen it tossing upon the sea, sweeping up till the flame of its sail almost touched the clouds, and then plunging down into the black water, but always, always rushing on with the storm around it and with never any rest. And I have seen the angry clouds tearing across the sky; you can see them yourself ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost

... discover their ears, in which 1 regularly saw -large and generally drop gold ear-rings, were quite as diverting ...to myself as to Alex and Adrienne. Many of them, also, had gold necklaces chains, and crosses; but ear-rings all: even maids who were scrubbing or sweeping, ragged wretches bearing burdens on their heads or shoulders, old women selling fruit or other eatables, gipsy-looking creatures with children tied to their backs—all wore these long, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... often dwelt near me. I felt her in the breath of winter winds sweeping over sunny fields of snow; I breathed her presence in the morning frost that clung, glittering, to my beard; I saw the shadow of her gigantic form glide over the smoky darkness of heaven which hung with the quietude of hopelessness over the dull ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann

... ran between Acarnania and AEtolia, often did considerable damage to those countries by its inundations, and, at the same time, by confounding or sweeping away the limits which separated those nations, it engaged them in continual warfare with each other. Hercules, who seems really to have been a person of great scientific skill, which he was ever ready to employ for the service of his fellow ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... signed Executive Order 10925, which combined the committees on government (p. 506) contracts and employment policy into a single Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity chaired by the Vice President.[20-17] His order, he believed, specified sanctions "sweeping enough to ensure compliance."[20-18] Finally, in November 1962, after numerous and increasingly pointed reminders from civil rights advocates, the President issued Executive Order 11063, directing executive agencies to take action against discrimination in the sale or lease of federal housing ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... flagrant an invasion of the liberty of particular men has been already exposed; nor is it, in my opinion, less easy to discover the imprudence of exhausting all our supplies at once, and sweeping away all our sailors, to supply a ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... slender when young, sometimes inclined to be tall, and the face—of course beautiful in complexion, for they dwell near the sea—is not seldom refined and distinguished. See the proud, sensitive nostrils of that young woman sweeping the pavement with her broom in front of the house this morning; one can tell she is of the same race as Charlotte Corday. And I have certainly never found anywhere in France women who seem to me so naturally ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... representation in parliament, and to report their observations thereon to the house. The petitions which had been presented prayed for the abolition of the Septennial Act. Pitt did not adopt this prayer, but demanded the sweeping away of all rotten boroughs, and the establishment of an equal representation. His motion was seconded by Alderman Sawbridge, and was warmly supported by Sir George Saville, Mr. Fox, and other Whig orators. It was opposed by ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... the shrewd verse-maker and the foolish philosopher finally hinges on this: namely, that these atheists are not honest investigators, that in their sweeping generalisations, as in their speciosity and hypocrisy, they are commercially perverse. And Khalid is not long in deciding about the matter. He meets with an accident—and accidents have always been his touchstones of success—which saves his soul and seals the fate ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... my unfaltering Jane!—two women, achieve against the thought of failure firmly held by him to whom, we looked to lead us boldly in our forward dash? Mr. Shaw, this is no time for crawling earthworm tactics. It is with the bold and sweeping glance of the eagle that we must survey this island, until, the proper point discerned, we swoop with majestic ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... he saw her—she was at the other end of the gallery; he saw the tall, slender figure and the sweeping dress—he saw the white arms with their graceful contour, the golden hair, the radiant face—and he groaned aloud; he saw her looking up at the pictures as she passed slowly along—the ancestral Arleighs of whom he was so proud. ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... up into the sky, as into an enormous furnace. Gigantic rolling clouds of flame were sweeping before the roaring wind like some vast prairie fire across the firmament. As they passed overhead, the reflection of the lurid light on them was smitten earthwards, and passed with them, making everything it traversed clear as noon—the lion on the swinging sign of the ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley

... misapprehensions of the meaning of Scripture: his false glosses, and truly preposterous specimens of exegesis[235]. I am content to take leave of him, while he is flattering himself that he has "found the pearl of great price, after sweeping the house:" (p. 414:) and under that melancholy delusion, I fear he must be left,—holding the broom ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... elaboration; but we search in vain for any instructive notices of the people or of their pursuits, for any details of their social condition or illustration of their intellectual progress. Whilst the commerce of all nations was sweeping along the shores of Ceylon, and the ships of China and Arabia were making its ports their emporiums; the national chronicles, whose compilation was an object of solicitude to successive dynasties, are silent regarding these adventurous ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... Bering Strait, on the S. and S.W. by the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean, and on the E. by Yukon Territory and British Columbia. It consists of a compact central mass and two straggling appendages running from its S.W. and S.E. corners, and sweeping in a vast arc over 16 degrees of latitude and 58 degrees of longitude. These three parts will be referred to hereafter respectively, as Continental Alaska, Aleutian Alaska and the "Panhandle.'' The range of latitude ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... sheltered me again, and desired me to look up; I did so, and could see, as before, the green gleam of the mighty curve sweeping over the uipper ledge, and the fitful plunge of the water, as the spray between us and it alternately gathered and disappeared. An eminent friend of mine often speaks of the mistake of those physicians who regard man's ailments as purely chemical, to be met by chemical remedies only. He contends ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... of sweeping silks through the narrow hall, a vision of a very lovely woman in the door-way, and two daintily gloved hands were extended as an eager voice asked: "Dearest Christie, don't ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... for instance, is life, and it is male. Rather a sweeping and ambiguous statement; but you will comprehend it in the end. Were a man to wear it it would kill him, in time; but a woman can ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... threatened as sorely as the poorest and humblest. Her glorious beauty, even her life, might pass away in Le Grand Hotel as surely as in a tenement house. The very thought thrilled him with fear. Then a great pity rushed into his soul like a tide, sweeping everything before it. His stern resolution to stifle and trample upon his love melted like a snow-wreath, and every interest of life centred in the darkened room where Christine tossed and moaned in the deeper darkness of ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... man, and revengeful. All through his wanderings during a whole year he kept his injury in mind, and gave all his leisure moments to trying to invent a compensating satisfaction for it. He contrived many plans, and all of them were good, but none of them was quite sweeping enough: the poorest of them would hurt a great many individuals, but what he wanted was a plan which would comprehend the entire town, and not let so much as one person escape unhurt. At last he had a fortunate idea, and when it fell into his brain it lit up his whole head with ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain

... to seize every object at first glance; an innate sagacity, that saved the trouble of intense application; and an irresistible stream of eloquence, that flowed pure and classical, strong and copious, reflecting, in the most conspicuous point of view, the subjects over which it rolled, and sweeping before it all the slime of formal hesitation, and all the entangling weeds of chicanery. Yet the servants of the crown were not so implicitly attached to the first minister as to acquiesce in all his plans, and dedicate ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... at your goal. Keep his rules, and your path is clear; you may dominate the courts, triumph in the lecture-room, be smiled on by the fair; your bride shall be not, like your lawgiver and teacher's, an old woman off the comic stage, but lovely dame Rhetoric. Plato told of Zeus sweeping on in his winged car; you shall use the figure as fitly of yourself. And I? why, I lack spirit and courage; I will stand out of your way. I will resign—nay, I have resigned—my high place about our ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... attack on the following day with the assistance of fresh troops; and he eventually succeeded in overcoming the resistance of the handful of men who opposed him, and sweeping the valley of St. Martin. Men, women, and children were indiscriminately put to the sword. In some of the parishes no resistance was offered, the inhabitants submitting to the Duke's proclamation; but whether they submitted or not, made ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... seized a sword; its sweeping edge soon laid the Hero low, But not before his sinking arm was felt upon his foe: "Thanks, youthful friend!" the Hero said; "now Odin's hall is won, Its rays already greet my soul, its raptures ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... tide of life beats high in two mortals, and they meet in the moment of its apogee, when all the nature is sweeping on without command, guilelessly, yet thoughtlessly, the mere lilt of existence lulling to sleep wisdom and tried experience—speculation points all one way. Many indeed have been caught away by such a conjunction of tides, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... absent longer than usual. When he is here he speaks to me, he tells me stories, he teaches me to understand the pictures in some of his old books, he plays the violin for me. When he is gone I take more time to do my work, washing clothes, cleaning the dishes, sweeping the room, mending my dresses. When this is done, if the weather is fine, I gather flowers and fruits, I sit at the Falls making wreaths for our pictures and my grandfather's crucifix. If it is dark or stormy outside, I sing canticles, repeat ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... hands, he remarked, were very finished—the fingers pointed, the palms rosy. The set of her black, velvet coat revealed the roundness of her bust. The broad brim of her large, black hat, slightly upturned at the sides, and with sweeping ostrich plumes as trimming to it, threw the upper part of her charming face into soft shadow. Her heavy, dove-coloured, silk skirts stood out stiffly from her waist, declaring its slenderness. The few jewels she ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... station. As soon as he had left she sprang up and went out into the garden. The long and seemingly endless night was at least over, and surely with daylight they might hope for news of Margaret. The morning had broken cold and chilly, but the mist was sweeping away in great rolling clouds before a light easterly breeze that had sprung up ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler

... our whole duty. We worked hard, as was then expected; were at the store soon after sunrise, and had everything in order before our employers arrived. Young gentlemen in those days did many things that are now the porter's work, making fires, sweeping the store, etc., quite new duties to us, who were fresh from Academic shades, and from communion with Homer, Virgil, and Horace. I can't say we enjoyed it much. Neither did we like the lifting of heavy packages and being ordered about as if we were inferiors. But we did not shirk our ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... view typifies the educational vision that is sweeping over the South. "We must take the people with us," he said. There is nothing novel in the idea; but coming as it did from a representative business man, it carried weight ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing

... newspapers day by day were full of Douglas and his difficulties in Chicago. The common council had adopted a resolution censuring Douglas, calling the Clay Compromises a violation of the laws of God. The aldermen of Chicago must have been affected by the religious psychology which was now sweeping the country. ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... was difficult—if not impossible. By all military rules French was "hemmed in." To a lesser man retreat would have seemed inevitable, though disastrous. Once again it was French v. The Impossible. A member of his staff relates how, sweeping the horizon with his glass, while riderless horses from the guns galloped past, he muttered, squaring the pugnacious jaw, "They are over here to stop us from Bloemfontein and they are there to stop us from Kimberley—we have got to break through." In an ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm

... millions of francs in this way. Of the ancient nobility the Emperor once said, with a sneer: "I offered them rank in my army, they declined the service. I opened my antechambers to them, they rushed in and filled them." To this sweeping statement there were many noteworthy exceptions, but on the whole Napoleon never classed the estate of the French nobles lower than they deserved. Still they had a power which he recognized, and it was with a sort of grim humor that he began to distribute honors and the sops of patronage among both ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... it came into the pond,—a hundred feet from side to side,—bordered with flags and rushes and feathery meadow grasses. The real channel meandered in sweeping curves from bank to bank, and the water, except in the swifter current, was filled with an amazing quantity of some aquatic moss. The woods came straggling down on either shore. There were fallen trees in the stream here ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... the wind and the tide that were now aiding him were also sweeping the overturned lifeboat along at a rapid rate. He must come up with it before it reached the next shoal. He must reach it before the waves, and, worse than all, the cold had caused the poor fellows clinging to it for life ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... suffer to be thwarted. Mistaken notions of duty, religious zeal maddened by oppression, for a time clouded the faculty amongst the early Christians, but it soon burst forth again. Faint at first in its appearance, it gained strength with every passing lustre; and however sweeping the condemnation pronounced by early believers against vain signs and images expressive of the objects of this fleeting world, the voices of the cursers gradually hushed, and the mind of man, asserting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... with their serrated outline. He does not observe that deep notch in the great backbone of the continent, as regular as the cleft which the pioneer makes in felling a forest-tree; nor does he observe that the breeze which ripples the waters at the foot of the volcano is the north wind sweeping all the way from the Bay of Honduras through that break in the mountain range, which everywhere else, as far as the eye can reach, presents a high, unbroken barrier to its passage to the Pacific. Yet it is simply to determine ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... I boarded a car on the nearest trolley line. On the long, sweeping rush down the hills I put in the time trying, as any bewildered son of Adam might, to find myself and to rise in some measure to the stupendous demands of the new task which lay ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... since we dared not touch their food unless it were grain. In the town of the first of these cannibal people, being moved with fury, I killed a man whom I found about to murder a child and eat her, sweeping off his head with my sword. For this deed I expected that they would murder us, but they did not. They only shrugged their shoulders and saying that a god can do as he pleases, took away the slain ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... prefers simplicity in her dress—splendid and costly simplicity. An elegant white-satin and a tulle veil, the latter very full, the former extremely long and with a sweeping train, high corsage, and long sleeves, long white gloves, and perhaps a flower in the hair—such is the latest fashion for an autumn bride. The young ladies say they prefer that their magnificence should wait ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... sweeping up heavily from the northeast, and the air was cold and raw. Nan shuddered as she walked, and wished Ruth were safe and sound in her own warm home, which she never should have been permitted to leave this blustering day. A score of plans for ridding herself of her troublesome little follower ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... betokened the mourning that attends them. In his train were wild figures in the Indian dress, and many fantastic shapes without a model, giving the whole march a visionary air, as if a dream had broken forth from some feverish brain, and were sweeping visibly through the midnight streets. A mass of people, inactive, except as applauding spectators, hemmed the procession in; and several women ran along the sidewalk, piercing the confusion of heavier sounds with their shrill ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... either change slowly and continuously with the surroundings, paying cash for everything, meeting the smallest change with a corresponding modification, so far as is found convenient, or it must put off change as long as possible, and then make larger and more sweeping changes. ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... observer at a greater distance than, say, a quarter of a mile. There was therefore not much fear of our immediate discovery, since I now learned from Ama that our starting-point was at least three-quarters of a mile below the town, while, apart from our own exertions, the swollen current was sweeping us along at a speed of about six knots. In little more than ten minutes from the moment of starting we swept out of the tributary stream into the main river, the current of which was also flowing pretty rapidly, though not, of course, so swiftly as ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... Monsieur Fletcher?" the count said, as Philip placed himself beside him, felling one of the foremost of the assailants, as he did so, with a sweeping blow. ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... cometh—and it brings A music with it—'tis the rush of wings— A pause—and then a sweeping, falling strain And Nesace is in her halls again. From the wild energy of wanton haste Her cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart; And zone that clung around her gentle waist Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart. Within the centre ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... nature. That such collections of stars are not designed thus to derange the order of nature, proves a priori, that some other conservative principle must exist; that the medium of space must contain many vortices—eddies, as it were, in the great ethereal ocean, whose currents are sweeping along the whole body of stars. We shall consider, (as a faint shadowing of the glorious empire of Omnipotence,) that the whole infinite extent of space is full of motion and power to its farthest verge; and it may be an allowable stretch of the imagination to conceive that ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... all sides the dipping flags, the monstrous gilded prows, the bravery of colour, down this broad road on which he went, scarcely conscious that, as he passed, the great barges wheeled behind him to follow to the meeting; scarcely hearing the tremendous music that, sweeping up from the crowded streets below, wafted up to him the adoration of a free people who had learned at last that the Law of Liberty was the Law of Love. . ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... large keys, and yawningly unlocks and sets open. Come Mrs. Tope and attendant sweeping sprites. Come, in due time, organist and bellows-boy, peeping down from the red curtains in the loft, fearlessly flapping dust from books up at that remote elevation, and whisking it from stops and ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... the cloud shaped like a beast seems leaping over it. LEMMY plays the first notes of the Marseillaise. A black cat on the window-sill outside looks in, hunching its back. LITTLE AIDA barks at her. MRS. LEMMY struggles to her feet, sweeping the empty dish and spoon to the floor ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... he knows that his affections are another's, and sees his wife fascinated by a handsome French adventurer. In an attempt to elope, the wife and her lover are wrecked, and clinging to a spar, are overtaken by the "terrible South Breaker—plunging and rearing and swelling, a monstrous billow, sweeping and swooping and rocking in." Dan in later life, marries Georgia, his first love.—Harriet Prescott Spofford, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... them and made her way down in the darkness to the river. The evening boat was coming up, starred with lights, its big search-light sweeping the shores. When it passed, the darkness seemed deeper. The night was cool, and Anne, wrapped in a white cloak, was like a ghost among the shadows. Far up on the terrace she could see the big house, and ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... ambition fired his soul. "It's funny," he mused, "what's come over me. I never hankered to work, even in my wildest moments, and yet I pine for it this minute—even street-sweeping would be welcome, though that sort of thing isn't going to be much in my line from now on. With the start uncle's given me, I can surely get along all right, and, anyhow, I've got two hands, two feet, and one head, all good of their kind, so there's ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed

... of Water Heating Surface passed over by Gases/Per Cent of the Total Amount of Steam Generated in the Boiler against Temperature in Degrees Fahrenheit of Hot Gases Sweeping Heating Surface ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... shade. Hot winds sweeping as though from a furnace. And what water one had so hot and stale that it could ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... that the measure was trod by some one who out-Farfraed Farfrae in saltatory intenseness. This was strange, and it was stranger to find that the eclipsing personage was Elizabeth-Jane's partner. The first time that Henchard saw him he was sweeping grandly round, his head quivering and low down, his legs in the form of an X and his back towards the door. The next time he came round in the other direction, his white waist-coat preceding his face, and his toes preceding his ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... dinner dress for guests admits of great splendor. It may be of any thick texture of silk or velvet for winter, or light rich goods for summer, and should be long and sweeping. Every trifle in a lady's costume should be, as far as she can afford it, faultless. The fan should be perfect in its way, and the gloves should be quite fresh. Diamonds are used in broaches, pendants, ear-rings and bracelets. If artificial ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... enigmas. He really loved no living soul. He had no sympathies. He would not part with his money to save agent, servant, neighbor, or relation from death. Nevertheless, when the yellow fever spread dismay, desolation, and death throughout Philadelphia, in 1793, sweeping one-sixth of its population into the grave in about sixty days, he devoted himself to nursing the sick in the hospital with a self-sacrificing zeal which knew no bounds, and which excited universal admiration and praise. His biographer accounts for this conduct, repeated on two subsequent visitations ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... Girerd: "Act vigorously, my dear brother. In our present situation, we must have even more than devotion and loyalty; we must have fanaticism if necessary." In conclusion, she says that he is not to hesitate "in sweeping away all that is of a bourgeois nature." In April she wrote to Lamartine, reproaching him with his moderation and endeavouring to excite his revolutionary spirit. Later on, although she was not of a very warlike disposition, she regretted that they ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic

... here a long time," she said, "but I don't know what Time is. And I am very busy sewing silk flowers on a golden gown for my wedding day. And the griffin does the housework—his wings are so convenient and feathery for sweeping and dusting. And the dragon does the cooking—he's hot inside, so, of course, it's no trouble to him; and though I don't know what Time is I'm sure it's time for my wedding day, because my golden gown only wants one more white daisy on the sleeve, ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit

... postilion was on his errand, I had time to survey the mansion. It stood some short distance below the road, on the side of a hill sweeping down to the Tweed; and was as yet but a snug gentleman's cottage, with something rural and picturesque in its appearance. The whole front was overrun with evergreens, and immediately above the portal was a great pair of ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... own shore made out in a shallow, sweeping curve, ending half a mile away in a bold hill-point where the Company's post of Fort Moultrie had stood for two hundred years commanding the western end of the lake and its outlet, Great ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... the outer yard. Jock Gilmour had been dashing water on the paved floor, and was now sweeping it out with a great whalebone besom. The hissing whalebone sent a splatter of dirty drops showering in front of it. John set his bare feet wide (he was only in his shirt and knickers) and eyed the man whom his father had ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... seemed tempted to take up the gauntlet with himself, challenging his own forcibly expressed convictions. And then as if realizing the uselessness of such an attempt, he sighed heavily and sought consolation in the gravy. And Mrs. Hornblower demonstrated the sweeping character of her victory by saying plaintively: "Of course a woman always feels breaking off old associations the way a man can't understand. Robert laughs at me. He says he b'lieves I fairly get attached to ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... humour I was in at the time. 'Biologised by infernal spirits since "Casa Guidi Windows"' yet 'Casa Guidi Windows' was not wholly vicious it seems to me, nor 'Aurora' utterly corrupt. And Mr. Howitt is both a clever man, and an honest and brave man, for all his sweeping opinions. Biologised and be-Harrised he is certainly. What an extraordinary admiration! I wonder at that more than at any of the external spiritual phenomena. Dearest Fanny, you were very, very good and ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... coverts, in which they had been hiding all summer, and began to pluck the berries of the open plains, where they could easily be waylaid and caught by the growing wolf cubs. Plover came in hordes, sweeping over the Straits from the Labrador; and when the wolves surrounded a flock of the queer birds and hitched nearer and nearer, sinking their gray bodies in the yielding gray moss till they looked like weather-worn logs, the hunting was full of tense ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long



Words linked to "Sweeping" :   broad, cleaning, cleansing, wide, indiscriminate, sweep, cleanup



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