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Whirlwind   /wˈərlwˌɪnd/  /hwˈərlwˌɪnd/   Listen
Whirlwind

noun
1.
A more or less vertical column of air whirling around itself as it moves over the surface of the Earth.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Whirlwind" Quotes from Famous Books



... like superstitions, which these men introduced in the fourth and fifth centuries. [13] And at the time of the end the King of the South, or the Empire of the Saracens, shall push at him; and the King of the North, or Empire of the Turks, shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots and with horsemen, and with many ships; and be shall enter into the countries of the Greeks, and shall overflow and pass over. He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown; but these shall escape out of his hand, ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton

... round at her in amazement, but she had no time to ask for an explanation, for Sylvia, white to the lips, with eyes of flame, went straight to the attack. She was in such a whirlwind of passion as had never ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... strange thing is man! and what a stranger Is woman? what a whirlwind is her head, And what a whirlpool full of depth and danger Is all the rest about her! whether wed, Or widow, maid, or mother, she can change her Mind like the wind; whatever she has said Or done, is light ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various

... that I felt as if there were nothing else but these from morning to night within me; and as though indeed there could be room for nothing else; and also concluded, that God had, in very wrath to my soul, given me up to them, to be carried away with them, as with a mighty whirlwind. ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan

... To-morrow, etc.' All the Macbeths I have heard took the opportunity to become melancholy when they came to this: and, no doubt, some such change from Fury and Desperation was a relief to the Actor, and perhaps to the Spectator. But I think it should all go in the same Whirlwind of Passion as the rest: Folly!—Stage Play!—Farthing Candle; Idiot, etc. Macready used to drop his Truncheon when he heard of the Queen's Death, and stand with his Mouth open for some while—which ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... almost the same, and performed by both in the same manner. Marlborough "teaches the battle to rage;" the angel "directs the storm:" Marlborough is "unmoved in peaceful thought;" the angel is "calm and serene:" Marlborough stands "unmoved amidst the shock of hosts;" the angel rides "calm in the whirlwind." The lines on Marlborough are just and noble, but the simile gives almost the same images a second time. But perhaps this thought, though hardly a simile, was remote from vulgar conceptions, and required great labour and research, or dexterity of application. ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson

... Like a whirlwind Nina threw herself at her aunt's knees, pulled her sewing away, and claimed her whole attention. "Tell me everything you know," she demanded hungrily. "Why haven't you told me before? Why do you think so? What has he said to you? Dearest auntie princess, tell me ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... about 10 a.m. "Lady Anne" and "Bloody Mary" replied within a few moments of each other, and the second of the two shots exploded right on the top of "Tom's" earthworks, but he fired again within a few minutes, aiming at the new balloon, the old one having been torn to pieces in a whirlwind nearly a week ago. When the balloon soared out of reach, he turned a few shots upon the town and camps, ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... attended with pain. His doctrine of the production of animals was founded on the action of the sunlight on the miry earth. The earth he places in the centre of the world, whither it was carried by a whirlwind, the pole being originally in the zenith; but, when animals issued from the mud, its position was changed by the Intellect, so that there might be suitable climates. In some particulars his crude guesses present amusing anticipations of subsequent discoveries. Thus he ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... held such kind, unaffected, friendly hands since they parted; he has only once before held a hand that could have led a Jaffier to confess his conspiracy—that could have clung to a crushed man, and striven to raise him when calamity, like a whirlwind, cast him down. ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... the parson commanded; the grim dog obediently came to heel. The pair then proceeded into the woods, which, so they say, as soon as the two entered, were shaken by a violent whirlwind. But at last the priest led his charge to the edge of the pool below the waterfall, then producing a walnut-shell with a hole in it, handed it to the hound and ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various

... been forced to abandon the pursuit from being impeded by the great quantity of their booty. In the mean time a report spread extensively through the other nations of the Goths, that a race of men, hitherto unknown, had suddenly descended like a whirlwind from the lofty mountains, as if they had risen from some secret recess of the earth, and were ravaging and destroying everything which came in their way. And then the greater part of the population which, because of their want ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... no reply, but feeling in his heart that he "who sows the wind, must reap the whirlwind;" that such were the rewards from villainy, to its vile instruments; he could not but say to himself, "I have deserved it of my God, but not of thee!" and sobbing over the remains of his equally criminal wife, by the assistance ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... seemed to stand still, and she shut her eyes and waited for the end, when with one bound the black cat stood between her and her enemies. He began battle instantly, and so vigourously that it was impossible to stand before the whirlwind of flying claws and snapping teeth that he seemed to have become. Soon his opponents retired with inglorious haste, and he was ...
— The Book of the Cat • Mabel Humphrey and Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall

... Thee in the whirlwind, I have known Thee on the hill, I have known Thee in the voice of birds, In the music of the rill. I dreamt Thee in the shadow, I saw Thee in the light, I heard Thee in the thunder-peal, And worshipp'd in the night. All beauty, while it spoke ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... to weep, strange tongues, hurried speech, words of pain, accents of wrath, voices loud and weak, and the sound of hands accompanying them, made a tumult which revolves forever in that air endlessly dark, like sands blowing before a whirlwind. And I, whose head was hooded with horror, exclaimed: 'Master, what is it I hear? What kind of people is it that seems so vanquished by grief? And he replied: 'This is the miserable way followed by the sorry souls of those who lived without infamy and without glory. They are mingled with ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... but he had made up his mind, and it was plain it was the nobler part—nay, the only honest part, since it was plainly of no use to speak openly. I wondered a little that his love was so self-restrained. It was an intense glow, but not an outbreak; but I think that having gone through all the whirlwind of tempestuous passion for a mere animal like poor Meg made him the more delicately reverent and considerate for the real love of the higher nature which had now developed in him. He said himself that the allowing himself to hope, and ceasing to crush his feelings, was so great a change as to ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of five hundred thousand had given Grant unlimited men for the coming whirlwind. His army was the flower of Northern manhood. He commanded the best-equipped body of soldiers ever assembled under the flag of the Union. His baggage train was sixty miles long and would have stretched the entire distance from his crossing ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... darkness spread over the land, a wild wind arose, and the roaring of thunder announced a storm. And such a storm! Along the ridges of corn-plants drove the rain-laden wind, and the plants bent down before it and rose again like the waves of the sea. They bowed down and they rose up. Only where the whirlwind was the strongest they fell to the ground and could not ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... Soames, "unless somebody got a snap of a whirlwind touching a snow-field and bouncing up again, this will be a photographic first. It's not an explosion-pattern, you'll notice. Wind and snow weren't thrown away from the center. They were drawn toward it. Momentarily. It's an explosion inside out, an implosion-pattern ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster

... goods are here too. Isn't it a miracle? It could never have been done if I hadn't found a kind friend among the railroad men, who sent my things by fast freight. Now to settle in a whirlwind of a hurry ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond

... criminal. It is in vain that we rebel against the inconsistencies and crudities of the work: its faults are redeemed by the living energy that pervades it. We may exclaim against the blind madness of the hero; but there is a towering grandeur about him, a whirlwind force of passion and of will, which catches our hearts, and puts the scruples of criticism to silence. The most delirious of enterprises is that of Moor, but the vastness of his mind renders even that interesting. We see him leagued with desperadoes directing their ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... tanks and gas of Ypres. But there is one military implement so beautiful in itself, and so magical in the nature of its service, that it is bound to conquer a place in poetry. The air-machine, to quote The Campaign once more, "rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." But the poets are still shy of it. In French it has, as yet, inspired but one good poem, the "Plus haut toujours!" of Jean Allard-Meeus, a hymn of real aerial majesty. In English Major ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... days were spent in a whirlwind of dust and rubbish, turned out from unguessed-at recesses, and Cheon's jovial humour suiting his helpers to a nicety, the rubbish was dealt with amid shouts of delight and enjoyment; until Jimmy, losing his head in his lightness of heart, dug Cheon in the ribs, and, waving ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently: for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... a man understood, as he ought to understand, that if he goes into that relation there is no possibility of his getting out, or no probability, he would be more slow to put his neck in the yoke. He should say to himself, "Rather than a Caribbean whirlwind with a whole fleet of shipping in its arms, give me a zephyr off fields of ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... not proof: it is mere assertion, and assertion made to produce prejudice. It is like raising a whirlwind of sand to blind the eyes that are looking for landmarks. It is quite probable Lady Byron told different stories about Lord Byron at various times. No woman could have a greater variety of stories to tell; and no woman ever ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Bussy's fight is beyond everything. You gallop along as if in a whirlwind, and it is only in cooler moments that you discover he killed about twelve rascals with his own good arm. It seems impossible; the scientific, careful readers have been known to declare it impossible ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison

... was a step on the stairs, but not so light as Edith's had been, and a moment later the door burst open, and "the child" rushed in like a mild whirlwind, exclaiming: ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... gods and demons, we have spirits of the whirlwind and the Northern Lights; gnomes; and a host of inferior demons, as well as various grades of sorcerers, especially Wind-sorcerers, Word-sorcerers, or soothsayers, and Death-sorcerers, or necromancers. The Tont, or House-Spirit, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... remarkable showers may be accounted for, when we consider the mighty power of the wind; especially that form of it which is popularly called the whirlwind. It is now pretty well ascertained, that in all, or most of the great storms which agitate the atmosphere, the wind has a circular or rotatory movement; and the same is probably the case in many of the lesser storms, in which the air is whirled upwards in a spiral curve with great velocity, ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous

... different parts of the city, under the form of flames, which flames traversed the streets, united with others which they met, and proceeded in the direction of Sion, increasing every moment, and at last came to a stop beneath the tribunal of Caiphas, where they remained, forming together a perfect whirlwind of fire. ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... the preceding spring and resulting, with the help of the Equal Righters, in the choice of a Whig mayor, had prepared the way for a surprise; yet no one imagined that a political revolution was imminent. But the suffering people were angry, and, like a whirlwind, the Whigs swept nearly every county in the State. Of one hundred and twenty-eight assemblymen, they elected one hundred and one, and six of the eight senators. It happened, too, that as the triennial election ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... our squalid lodgings reading the attractive advertisements of country mansions in a weekly journal. I had just decided on a delightful Tudor manor-house with every modern convenience, a nice little park and excellent fishing and shooting, when Betty burst upon me like a whirlwind. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various

... of love, it offers another instance of his independence of classical tradition. No Greek would have thus represented Eros. The lyric poets, indeed, Ibycus and Anacreon, imaged him as a fierce invasive deity, descending like the whirlwind on an oak, or striking at his victim with an axe. But these romantic ideas did not find expression, so far as I am aware, in antique plastic art. Michelangelo's Cupid is therefore as original as his Bacchus. Much as critics have written, and with justice, upon the classical tendencies of the ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... commonplace in the comparison. In the eighth canto of the Inferno, the devils insolently refuse the poet and his guide an entrance into the city of Dis:—an angel comes sweeping over the Stygian lake to enforce it; the noise of his wings makes the shores tremble, and is like a crashing whirlwind such as beats down the trees and sends the peasants and their herds flying before it. The heavenly messenger, after rebuking the devils, touches the portals of the city with his wand; they fly open; and he returns the way he came without ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... first-named young man's extravagance, four generations have known perfectly well that there is something besides absurdity in him, while in Adolphe there is no extravagance at all. The wind of Sensibility had been sown, in literature and in life, for many a long year, and the whirlwind had begun to ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... "It's a whirlwind, I fancy," replied Captain Miles; "I've seen a good many in the South Atlantic, near the African coast, although never one before in these latitudes so ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... that wonderful Teutonic administrative mania was already manifesting itself while ruined houses still smoked; method replaced chaos, order marched on the heels of the Prussian rear-guard, which enveloped Morsbronn in a whirlwind of Uhlans, and left it a silent, blackened landmark in ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... men from time immemorial. No miracles can he perform on material things; he can save only that which life's ordinary laws still allow to be saved; and himself, it may be, shall be suddenly seized in a great inexorable whirlwind. But, though he perish therein, still does he escape the fate that is common to most; for at least he will die without having been forced—for weeks, or it may be for years, before the catastrophe—to be the helpless, despairing witness ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... of insane delight arose tumultuously from her breast. There the village lay at her feet. A thick cloud of smoke had settled down upon it. But now, now—ah!—now there was a red flame shooting through the cloud! It divided, a whirlwind was blowing in it, fiery tongues stuck up, gigantic, joyously bright, and lapped to the right, and lapped to the left, and united, and flowed into one another, and grew longer and broader—became a fiery ribbon that unrolled more and more and speedily wound itself ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... I propose to speak. Others had preceded it, and in the country all about Angelica were what were called 'windfalls.' These windfalls were neither more nor less than the old tracks of these whirlwinds and tornadoes, that had swept down the forest trees. Fire had finished what the whirlwind begun. In time, blackberry-bushes had grown up among the charred trunks of the old pines, and other trees, bearing an immensity of fruit; and it was a pleasant resort for young people, one of those windfalls, when the blackberries were ripe and luscious. These windfalls were great places, too, ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... Mr. Stafford, "how often have I told you that I will not be interrupted in the middle of my morning's work? You come in like a whirlwind, ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... thing most wondrous to tell. In far-away France an awful darkness came down upon the land; a great whirlwind swept the face of the country; the rain fell, the earth rocked, and the thunder rolled along the sky. For a long time the darkness was unbroken, save when the lightning cleft the storm-clouds and gave to the scene a yet wilder fear. On all there ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... last blow was given to the last of the house: the youthful survivor of her race sat alone among the dead. There was no living being near to soothe her, or withdraw her from this hideous company. With the declining heat of a September night, a whirlwind of storm, thunder, and hail, rattled round the house, and with ghastly harmony sung the dirge of her family. She sat upon the ground absorbed in wordless despair, when through the gusty wind and bickering rain she thought she ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... Showing, but thyself unseen; Pouring stillness on the storm; Breathing life where death had been! If thy light thou didst draw in, Death and Chaos soon were out, Weltering o'er the slimy sea, Riding on the whirlwind's rout, In wild unmaking energy! God, be round us and within, Fighting ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... made the gates fly open, and the very Castle itself tremble. The Giant and the Conjuror now knew that their wicked course was at an end, and they stood biting their thumbs, and shaking with fear. Jack, with his sword of sharpness, soon killed the Giant; and the Magician was then carried away by a whirlwind; and every knight and beautiful lady, who had been changed into birds and beasts, returned to their proper shapes. The Castle vanished away like smoke, and the head of the Giant Galligantus was sent to King Arthur. The knights and ladies rested that night at he old man's ...
— The Story of Jack and the Giants • Anonymous

... a goat-herd from some hill-peak sees a cloud coming across the deep with the blast of the west wind behind it; and to him, being as he is afar, it seems blacker, even as pitch, as it goes along the deep, bringing with it a great whirlwind.) ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... filled with the booming echoes, so that cannon seemed to be on every hand. She flew on with all speed. Soon she heard the crashing trees ahead, and knew that in a moment she would be once more face to face with death. She did not falter. Now she was again in the fierce whirlwind! All around her the shot howled and shrieked. On every side branches fell crashing to the earth. A cannon-ball plunged into the ground close beside her, cast over her a heap of mud, and threw her down. She sprang up and pressed on with redoubled vigor. Not even that ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various

... effort to do so. You were tempted to believe her wholly and solely devoted to those with whom she found herself. Her gaiety—young, quick, and active—animated all; and her nymph-like lightness carried her everywhere, like a whirlwind which fills several places at once, and gives them movement and life. She was the ornament of all diversions, the life and soul of all pleasure, and at balls ravished everybody by the justness and perfection of her dancing. She ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... is probably the more correct), Bridal-Veil Fall.... This word is said to signify 'evil wind.' The only 'evil wind' that an Indian knows of is a whirlwind, ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson

... yet to summon them. I shall try first to calm this wild young bull through the fatherly hand of his holiness. It would be a pity to lose the boy, for he has much ability and the energy of a southern whirlwind. But if the whirlwind, instead of blowing away Egypt's enemies, blows down its wheat and tears up ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... but a stormy sea: immense blue silent waves rocked the boat majestically; something menacing, roaring was rising from the depths; her unknown companions jumped up, shrieking, wringing their hands... Elena recognised their faces; her father was among them. But a kind of white whirlwind came flying over the waves—everything was turning round, everything ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev

... 'Young man, will you listen to me? Once we battered him with ten thousand pairs of wings and assailed him with ten thousand beaks, but he triumphed. For one man to go up against him is as a thistledown attacking a whirlwind. Do nought. Stay with me: I will ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac

... shook myself, righted the pulk, and commenced again. Off we went, like the wind, down the hill, the snow flying in my face and blinding me. My pulk made tremendous leaps, bounding from side to side, until, the whirlwind suddenly subsiding, I found myself off the road, deep overhead in the snow, choked and blinded, and with small snow-drifts in my pockets, sleeves and bosom. My beard and eyebrows became instantly a white, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... too old and, I hope, too wise," returned the Spaniard, "to attempt to tame the whirlwind. But cheer up, my friend. Although she rode off to meet this Hanson, without a doubt, still, the day is ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... self-poised and self-centered to be adequately rendered by any word that suggests complete abandonment. It is too—what shall I say?—too sly and demonic—too much inside the little secrets of the great Mother—to be summed up in a word that suggests a sort of Titanic whirlwind of embraces. And yet, on the other hand, it is quite as easy to exaggerate the Olympian aspect of Goethe. When this is carried too far, something in him, something extraordinarily characteristic, evaporates, like a thin stream ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... departed for one of his tours into the wilds of the world, not to return to England until five years had elapsed. Their mutual attraction was the attraction of opposites. There was nothing in common except mutual esteem between a wild, tempestuous being like Musard, who rushed through life like a whirlwind, for ever seeking new scenes in primitive parts of the earth, and the tranquil mistress of the moat-house, who had rarely been outside her native county, and revolved in the same little circle year after year, happy in her artless country ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... is a very headstrong person," said Father Angelo. "He refuses to accept your offer. He swept it aside like a whirlwind." ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... professor said to me once and it had a wonderfully reducing effect. So I tried it on this excited little freshman. But the result was different. Instead of clearing the atmosphere with a breeze of half mortified laughter, it created a stillness like the stillness before a whirlwind. I got up hastily. "I think I had better be going," ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... lest he take thee away with his stroke; then a great ransom cannot deliver thee. Will he esteem thy riches? No, not gold, nor all the forces of strength. He hath prepared his throne for judgment, for he will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebukes with flames of fire. Therefore, O Mansoul, take heed lest, after thou hast fulfilled the judgment of the wicked, justice and judgment should take hold ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... silently, and followed them into a small Whirlwind groundcar. The little gyro-car bumped down the road on its single wheel, down into a gorge, then out onto the flats. Dan strained his eyes, peering ahead at the spear of Starship gleaming in the distant night-lights. Pictures from the ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse

... whirlwind of iron and fire let loose, thanks to the factories of France, where your brothers have, night and day, worked for us, you will proceed to the attack, all together, on the whole front, in close union with ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... out his shining lips towards Liza's little head. But the kiss did not follow. The doors of the hall, of the dining-room, of the parlour, and of the drawing-room all slammed, and Groholsky flew into the drawing-room like a whirlwind. He was pale and trembling. He was flourishing his arms and crushing his expensive hat in his hands. His coat fluttered upon him as though it were on a peg. He was the incarnation of acute fever. When Bugrov saw him he moved ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... iron reign Comes the loud whirlwind, on thy pinion borne; The long long night,—the tardy, leaden morn; The grey frost, riv'ling lane, and hill, and plain; Chill silent snows, and heavy, pattering rain. These are thy known allies;—and Life forlorn, Yet patient, droops, nor breathes ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... emotion would roll over Seitz's placid features under the sharpest of these objurgations. At last, losing all patience, two or three boys would dismount, run to Seitz's horse, pack, saddle and bridle him, as if he were struck with a whirlwind. Then Seitz would mount, and we ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... in the air at every fall of beam or timber, and they rushed round and round, as if agitated by a whirlwind, to be carried far away, but every now and then flashes of fire that escaped the whirl floated softly here and there, making it seem horrible to me as I watched them drop slowly to earth, some to be extinguished and disappear just as a great pat of snow will melt away when it touches ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... boys, who had been drawing pictures with their bare toes in the deep white dust of the street, scowled after him because his horse's feet had spoiled their work. His advent had left no more impression than the tiny whirlwind in its erratic and momentary flurry. The money for which he had sweat blood was gone. Mechanically he jambed his hands into his ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... way of omelets, new-laid eggs, hot buttered cakes of various descriptions, huge wedges of honeycomb, and jars of that Scotch marmalade, so dear to the hearts of boating-men—vanished like smoke before a whirlwind. Whatever troubles these nomads may have had were hidden in their hearts for the time being. A wise custom prevailed in Mr. Granger's establishment with regard to the morning letters, which were dealt out to each guest with his or her early cup of tea, and not kept back for public ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... surprisingly so for a wit who is always giving such hard knocks. He should have put on an ass's skin before he went into parliament. Lord Liverpool is the single stay of this ministry; but he is not a man of a directing mind. He cannot ride on the whirlwind. He serves as the isthmus to connect one half of the cabinet with the other. He always gives you the common sense of the matter, and in that it is that his ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... hurricanes descend, Wheel through the air, in circling eddies play, Tear up the sands, and sweep whole plains away. The helpless traveller, with wild surprise, Sees the dry desert all around him rise, And, smother'd in the dusty whirlwind, dies. [Exeunt. ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison

... diminished thereafter the turnover of the epicerie in the Rue de la Paix. One hopes that her punishment finished with her acquittal, and that the mood of the mob, as apt as a flying straw to veer for a zephyr as for a whirlwind, swung to her favour from mere revulsion on her escape from the scaffold. The one thing is as likely as the other. Didn't the heavy man of the fit-up show, eighteen months after his conviction for rape (the lapse of time being occupied in ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... Like a whirlwind, the wild little girl dashed through the house, up the winding stairs, down the corridor, until she burst into Rosamund's room. There she flung herself on the ground at her friend's feet, twined her arms round her ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... seemed strange, at first thought, that the wind had not blown away the vapors that now enveloped him; but he saw presently that it was not blowing across the mountain, but rather in a circular, whirlwind motion that gradually became more violent. The terrace he now crossed was as smooth as a floor, and he found his way only by means of the crosses carved in the rocks beneath his feet. Then the trail dropped suddenly into a shallow trough; mounted to another field of crumbled stones; ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... afternoon. These are the words: "And no man hath ascended up to heaven." I asked Brother Hedrick if Elijah had not ascended to heaven? I quoted to him the very words recorded in the eleventh verse of the second chapter of Second Kings: "And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." Brother Hedrick confessed that a first thought on our Lord's words might lead the mind to conclude that there is a want of harmony between what he says to Nicodemus and what is plainly said of Elijah. But he removed the difficulty from my mind at once by explaining the Lord's ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... poisonous serpent. But, though she was deceived, there was one, the All-seeing One, whose eye was ever upon the sinful girl; and though for a while she seemed to prosper, the same mighty Power so ordered it, that after a time, she who had sown the tempest reaped the whirlwind; and the clouds which hung so heavy and dark around the pathway of her innocent victim, afterward burst with terrific violence upon ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... that this was one of the three ships belonging to Calicut of which he was in search, he put two of his men on board the prize, with orders to keep him company. Being arrived directly abreast of Cape Comorin, he met with a sudden whirlwind, by which he was nearly cast away, and when this subsided, he came to anchor within a league of the shore, where he remained all night. While at anchor thirty of his Moorish prisoners made their escape, twelve of whom were retaken ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... thought it is interesting, but it solves no problems; it advances no truths. It resembles a whirlwind which helps to clear the air and drive away superfluous leaves, but it does little to quicken or expand ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... was beaten white with a thousand wings, it was like snow and silver and seafoam, there was a flashing whirlwind, a hurricane of wild joy and then the Army of the Sky spread wide in ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... face, full of contrasts, he was sometimes the roguish boy who made the whole class shake with laughter, and involved it in a whirlwind of games and tricks, and at others the serious, thoughtful pupil, who was considered to be self-absorbed, distant, and not inclined to reveal himself to anybody. The fierce soldier of the petite guerre was also a formidable adversary at checkers. ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... whirlwind of feeling he did not inquire too closely into the pros and cons of probability. Enough that evidence seemed to be with him, and that it transformed the world ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... Man who wandered afar," So have I chanted of late, and of Troy burg wasted of war - Now of the sorrows of Menfolk that fifty years have been, Now of the Grace of the Commune I sing, and the days of a Queen! Surely I curse rich Menfolk, "the Wights of the Whirlwind" may they - This is my style of translating [Greek text],—snatch them away! The Rich Thieves rolling in wealth that make profit of labouring men, Surely the Wights of the Whirlwind shall swallow them quick in their den! O baneful, O wit-straying, in the Burg of London ye dwell, And ever of Profits ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang

... citizens alike seemed prepared to rescue Villon by force from the hands of his enemies. The Scottish archers with levelled arquebusses formed a line in front of the dais and every courtier drew his sword. Only the king seemed unmoved, only the king seemed entertained by the wind he had sowed, the whirlwind he had reaped. He asked ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... fired low. Ferry's horse was hit; he reared, but the spur carried him on; his rider's sword flashed up and then down, the Federal's sabre turned it, the pistols cracked in our very faces, and down went my leader and his horse into the bottom of the whirlwind, right under the standard. I saw the standard-bearer bring down one of our men on top of Ferry, and as Ferry half regained his feet the Federal aimed point-blank against his breast. But it was I who fired and the Federal who fell. As he reeled I stretched out for the standard, ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... This, you must recollect, was ten years ago, and even then she was spoiled by being coarse and melodramatic, but now she is a horror. She suggests nothing but the penitentiary. When she saw that there were three of us, she flew into a whirlwind of passion, and screamed French that I was glad to find I could not wholly understand. Her dialect must come from the worst class of Parisian thieves. I should have been glad to understand less than ...
— Esther • Henry Adams

... advanced beyond Virgil and Victor Hugo beyond Homer. We have seen the latest freak of futurism preferred to The Lotus Eaters, and the first Legende des Siecles rejected as unreadable. In face of this whirlwind of doctrine the public ceases to know whether it is on its head or its feet—"its trembling tent all topsy-turvy wheels," as an Elizabethan has it. To me it seems that security can only be found in an incessant exploration of the by-ways of literary history and analysis ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... expires. Come let us try another weird—the tempest let us chain; A bridle for the passions ho! for giant pride a rein! Thus quelleth grace the master-craft that was the cause of all The ruin that befell us in the whirlwind of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... and words, alike, fanned his father's resentment into a blaze. In a burst of passion he lunged forward at the boy with his stick. But as he smote, a gray whirlwind struck him fair on the chest, and he fell like a snapped stake, and lay, half stunned, with a dark muzzle ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... in two minds, Neptune sent a terrible great wave that seemed to rear itself above his head till it broke right over the raft, which then went to pieces as though it were a heap of dry chaff tossed about by a whirlwind. Ulysses got astride of one plank and rode upon it as if he were on horseback; he then took off the clothes Calypso had given him, bound Ino's veil under his arms, and plunged into the sea—meaning to swim on shore. King Neptune watched him as he did so, and wagged his head, muttering to ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... under her feet and taking a long, heavy spear, she rushed like a whirlwind down from the heights of Olympos and stood at the doorway of Odysseus' house, among the men of Ithaca. She found the haughty suitors assembled there eating ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer

... army against them, surrounded the walls of the city on the day of the Passover, where a great part of the Jewish nation were then assembled, and to which others had fled for refuge, being driven by the terror of his arms like chaff before the whirlwind. Here they appeared! Husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, (one promiscuous throng) were gazing in breathless solicitude, while consternation and dismay were depicted in every ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods

... window, and looks out over the chestnut-trees to the snow-capped mountains on which Rudy once roamed. She looks at the Alpine glow in the evening sky, which is caused by the children of the sun retiring to rest on the mountain-tops; and again they breathe their song of the traveller whom the whirlwind could deprive of his cloak but not of his life. There is a rosy tint on the mountain snow, and there are rosy gleams in each heart in which dwells the thought, "God permits nothing to happen, which is not the best for us." But this ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... they doubted whether Western Europe had any knowledge of the Italian methods of administration. And if the immediate result of our journey would be to call down upon themselves—as indeed it did—a savage wind, they were optimistic enough to feel that it would eventually produce a whirlwind for their oppressors.] ... The S.S. Porer, 130 tons, was flying at the stern the temporary flag of white, blue, white in horizontal stripes which had been invented for the ships of the former Austro-Hungarian ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... That girl has come! There can't be any doubt of it. He had almost forgotten her existence during these past tranquil months, when no word or hint about her reached him, but now, here she is at last, descending upon him like a whirlwind. ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford

... said the bay. "Those are the Whirlwind's daughters; they are dancing in the air, waiting ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various

... them coming, and knowing that all hope of victory was lost, shouted to his people, wheeled round his horse, and galloped off as fast as the animal could put his feet to the ground. Ben and his followers then swept by like a whirlwind, and our only fear now was that the gallant fellow might lose his life by a chance shot ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston

... when the door burst open and the cook, fierce and furious, came in like a whirlwind and stood on the corner of the carpet, with a broken basin in one hand and a threat in the other, ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit

... and swung it as Blue Smoke struck at the air with his fore feet, as though trying to climb an invisible ladder. Pete swayed back as the horse came down in a mighty leap forward, and hooking his spurs in the cinch, rocked to each leap and lunge like a leaf caught up in a desert whirlwind. When Pete saw that Smoke's first fine frenzy had about evaporated, he urged him to further endeavors with the spurs, but Blue Smoke only grunted and dropped off into a most becoming and gentlemanly lope. And Pete was not altogether displeased. His ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... of chanting for the Florence Fleming Noyes school of dancers. In one short evening they made the first section of the Congo into an incantation, the King Solomon into an extraordinarily graceful series of tableaus, and the Potatoes' Dance into a veritable whirlwind. Later came the more elaborately ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay

... when Peter was in despair and Alice Galleon had ordered the tea-things to be taken away Clare Rossiter rushed in. She stood a whirlwind of flying colours in the middle of the Studio now sinking into twilight. "Alice dear, I am most terribly sorry but mother would stay. I couldn't get her to leave and it was all so awkward. How do you do, Mr. Westcott? Do you remember—we ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... set forth, we will see what a period of sore trial this delusion was to the Eastern churches. It is also a fact that, in the midst of this abounding heresy, the church of Philadelphia was preserved as was no other church of Asia. When the followers of Mohammed were sweeping like a whirlwind over the Eastern empire, ravaging everything before them, Philadelphia remained an independent Christian city, when all the other cities of Asia Minor were under the power of the Saracen sword. It held out against the Ottoman power until the year 1390 A.D., when it surrendered to Sultan Bayazid's ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... vivid and rapid as ever, save that the glare may have seemed a trifle less blinding because of the flames, and there was no sign that the storm was decreasing. Suddenly, even while it appeared as if a small whirlwind enveloped a derrick that stood on the hill on the opposite side of the valley, another storm of fire descended from the sky, wrapping the heavy timbers in flames without shattering them, and flinging angry tongues of fire on nearly every timber in ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis

... With splendour of slaughter and thunder of song as the sound of the sea Were the foes of him stricken in sunder and silenced as storms that flee. Terror and trust and the pride of the chosen, approved of his choice, Saw God in the whirlwind ride, and rejoiced as the winds rejoice. Subdued and exalted and kindled and quenched by the sense of his might, Faith flamed and exulted and dwindled, and saw not, and clung to the sight. The wastes of the wilderness brightened and trembled with rapture and dread When the word of him thundered ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... and the overwhelming heartiness with which they sang our triumphant Easter hymns. There is a capital Wesleyan choir in Bloemfontein; but they told me they might as well whistle to drown the roaring of a whirlwind as attempt "to lead" the singing of ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... of small straws; but of small straws carefully collected. And small straws show whence the wind blows. There are currents and cross currents which may make a whirlwind. ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... the current of immigration close to their own domicile. Their own children are in danger of being engulfed in the polluting flood of Oriental life in our midst. After many days vices come home. Man sowed the wind; the whirlwind must be reaped. The Oriental slave trader and the Oriental slave promise to become a terrible menace and scourge to our twentieth century civilization. Herein lies great peril to American womanhood. Whether we wish it to be so or not,—whether we perceive from ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell

... reverses. Many war parties had been sent out; some of them had been totally cut off, and others had returned broken and disheartened, so that the whole nation was in mourning. Among the rest, ten warriors had gone to the Snake country, led by the son of a prominent Ogallalla chief, called The Whirlwind. In passing over Laramie Plains they encountered a superior number of their enemies, were surrounded, and killed to a man. Having performed this exploit the Snakes became alarmed, dreading the resentment of the Dakota, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... conflicting circumstances, or to be struck out from the tortured mind like lightning from a storm-cloud. Such formidable shocks are exceptional. Well for us if we stand staunch when they come! But if no one is astonished that oaks are uprooted by the whirlwind, that a wayfarer stumbles at night on an unknown road, or that a soldier caught between two fires is vanquished, no more should he condemn without appeal those who have been worsted in almost superhuman moral conflicts. To succumb under the force of numbers or obstacles ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner

... stalks the stormy sea, The lightning leaps with lurid light, The glad gull calls from lea to lea, The whistling whirlwind fills the night; Bears each a message to my love, Whose stony ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... And our great father, waking from his sleep, Has sent him to oar aid. Master of Life, Endue my warriors with double strength! May the wedged helve be faithful to the axe, The arrow fail not, and the flint be firm! That our great vengeance, like the whirlwind fell, May cleave through thickets of our enemies A broad path to our ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair



Words linked to "Whirlwind" :   dust devil, windstorm



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