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Sway   Listen
noun
Sway  n.  
1.
The act of swaying; a swaying motion; the swing or sweep of a weapon. "With huge two-handed sway brandished aloft."
2.
Influence, weight, or authority that inclines to one side; as, the sway of desires.
3.
Preponderance; turn or cast of balance. "Expert When to advance, or stand, or turn the sway Of battle."
4.
Rule; dominion; control. "When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honor is a private station."
5.
A switch or rod used by thatchers to bind their work. (Prov. Eng.)
Synonyms: Rule; dominion; power; empire; control; influence; direction; preponderance; ascendency.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sway" Quotes from Famous Books



... and faithful;—but no tenderness, no gentleness, no inviting human warmth ever appears in him; and though he could reverence women, and admire them, and appreciate them also from the standpoint of the senses, they had no determining sway over his life or thought. If there be any man in English history whom such a summary of traits as this recalls, it is Dean Swift. Nevertheless Borrow's differences from him are far greater than the resemblances between them. Giant force was in both of them; both were enigmas; but the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... which that word is applied to the Bisyas of the town of Surigao. The same holds true of a great portion of the inhabitants of Tndag, Tgo, La Paz, and Kagwit, where the Mandya element in language and in superstitious beliefs still holds sway to a considerable extent among the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... travelers, used very strong terms to describe its extent, intelligence, and power. Speaking of its sovereign, he said, "The islands under his sceptre are so numerous that the fastest sailing vessel is not able to go round them in two years," implying that his sway was acknowledged by the island world over a large portion of the Pacific. This Malayan empire was maritime and commercial; it had fleets of great ships; and there is evidence that its influence reached most of the Pacific islands. This is shown by the fact that ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... king was tricked by the god Vishnu out of the sway of heaven and earth, but from his exceeding piety he was appointed to reign in ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... arrangements to prevent the spread of Socialistic propaganda beyond certain useful limits. As long as the Socialists only threatened capital they were not seriously interfered with, for the Government knew quite well that the undisputed sway of the employer was not for the ultimate good of the State. The standard of comfort must not be pitched too low if men are to be ready to die for their country. But the moment the Socialists began to interfere seriously with the discipline of the ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... fascinating, very, very delicate, the little open mouth poised and shaped ever so neatly to the words it was singing; the eyes wide apart and ever so wide open, fixed on nothing mortal. The song, and the little body, and the spirit in the eyes, all seemed to sway—sway together, like a soft wind that goes sough-sough, swinging, in the tops of the ferns. And now it stretched out one arm, and now the other, beckoning in to it those to which it was singing; so that one seemed to feel the invisible ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... coo and flutter on the shed, While all the simple, homelike sounds come whispering to my ears, And the cloudless sky of June is overhead; And again the yoke is creaking as the oxen swing and sway, The old cart rattles loudly as it jars, Then we pass beneath the elm trees where the robin's song is gay, And go out beyond ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln

... develop a worthy civilization, capable of maintaining and constantly improving itself, until the evolution of our globe shall have entered so far upon its downward course that the cosmic process resumes its sway; and, once more, the State of Nature prevails over the ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... he feels, he must maintain the strictist watch. (7) Again, to the private citizen there will come eventually, either through truce or terms of peace, respite from war; but for the tyrant, the day of peace will never dawn. What peace can he have with those over whom he exercises his despotic sway? (8) Nor have the terms of truce been yet devised, on which the despotic ruler may rely ...
— Hiero • Xenophon

... unfolded to her the most thrilling scene of the earth. Gazing, almost panting with excitement, it seemed to her that the nature she had known—the hills and fields of New England—shrank to littleness. First there was all about her the sway of the East River, golden—flecked with the morning sun, which glowed through a thin haze. From either shore a city climbed, topped with steeples and mill chimneys—floods of tenements and homes. Then ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... of old the pipe of this imperious Shepherd; sounding along the inner vales of his being; herding him toward universal fellowship with seeding grass and breeding herb and every heart-holding creature of the woods. He perfectly recognized the sway of the thrilling pipe; he perfectly realized the joy of the jubilant fellowship. And it was with eyes the more mournful therefore that he gazed in purity about him at the universal miracle of old life passing ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... lucre cannot dwell, There envy bears not sway, There is no hunger, heat or cold But ...
— The St. Gregory Hymnal and Catholic Choir Book • Various

... between the mace of the House of Commons and the fan of the Duchess de Longueville. England, as we need hardly say, has never had a government of this description. The nearest approach to it which she has ever seen was under the sway of Charles the Second, and, accordingly, the nearest approach to French memoirs which our literature possesses is in the volumes of Pepys and Hamilton. To the almost universal exemption of Englishwomen from taking an overt part in political affairs ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... the merciful One, who stamped our race With his own image, and who gave them sway O'er earth, and the glad dwellers on her face, Now that our swarming nations far away Are spread, where'er the moist earth drinks the day, Forget the ancient care that taught and nursed His latest offspring? will he quench the ray Infused by his own forming ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... reformation. The importance of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century is incalculable. It gave the deathblow to the universal spiritual supremacy of Rome. As we have already seen, the Papacy had for centuries held despotic sway over the minds and the consciences of men. One potent cause of the Reformation was the great Revival of Learning that marked the close of the medieval and the beginning of the modern period of history. This great mental awakening contrasted sharply with the blind ignorance and superstition of ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... that I am going—that is, if the rest of you are." Which, by the way, was always this little Flossy's manner of speech. She was going to do or not to do, speak or keep silent, approve or condemn, exactly as the mind which was for the time being nearest to her chose to sway her. ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... memorial, when we have pass'd away, Of old Dun-Edin's loyalty, and the Civic Council's sway; And it shall stand while earth is green and skies are summer blue, Eternal as the sleep of those ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... good idea of Dave's ways, for before they had been watching many minutes there was the splashing of the pole heard in the water, and the rustling of the reeds, but nothing was visible, and Tom began to be of opinion that his companion had been wrong, when all at once the reeds began to sway and crackle right before them, and before Tom recovered from his surprise the punt shot right out of the middle of the long low wall of dried growth, and in answer to a vigorous thrust or two from the pole, ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn

... the Hunters bold Upon the muir held sway; The Hunters' line shall ne'er decline Till the muir ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke

... with which it was almost impossible these could exactly correspond, it being certain that hardly two Men think alike, and therefore so many Men so many 'Spectators'. Besides, I must own my Weakness for Glory is such, that if I consulted that only, I might be so far sway'd by it, as almost to wish that no one could write a 'Spectator' besides myself; nor can I deny, but upon the first Perusal of those Papers, I felt some secret Inclinations of Ill-will towards the Persons who wrote ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... and six of the Church of Scotland, first of whom was Alexander Henderson. The corporation, which, in a restored form, Robert Boyle governed for thirty years, familiarised the nation with the duty of caring for the dark races then coming more and more under our sway alike in America and in India. It still exists, as well as Boyle's Society for advancing the Faith in the West Indies. The Friends also, and then the Moravians, taught the Wesleys and Whitefield to care for the negroes. The English and Scottish Propagation Societies sought also to provide spiritual ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... not yet his. But the act of yielding was, as sin ever is, a deliberate choice to please self and disobey God. The woman's more emotional, sensitive, compliant nature made her the first victim, and her greatest glory, her craving to share her good with him whom she loves, and her power to sway his will and acts, made her his temptress. 'As the husband is, the wife is,' says Tennyson; but the converse is even truer: As the wife ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... it be true that the external forms of nature exert a hidden but powerful sway over the dawning perceptions of the mind, and shape its thoughts to harmony with the things around, then most certainly ought Mr. Verdant Green to have been born a poet; for he grew up amid those scenes whose immortality is, that they inspired ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... this postulated Divinity consists of the Universal Mind, and that the Universal Mind comprises the aggregate Human Intelligence, co-operating with some Moral Centre beyond. And that the spontaneous sway of this Influence is toward harmony—toward the smoothing of obstacles, the healing of wounds. In the axiom that "Nature reverts to the norm," there is a recognition of this restorative tendency; and the religious aspect of the same truth is expressed in the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... exquisite beauty of the simultaneous or successive unfoldings. Given these powers, unhampered by any defect of mere technical skill, and it is hard to see how any mind susceptible of being interested in their application to such a topic could resist their sway. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... first lessons in navigation. He had been bound, it seemed, for the Canary Islands, and had put in for repairs, which needed only a few days in the quiet waters of a sheltered port. He could tell Luis of his parents, of his home, and that the northern part of Spain, under Arab sway, was humanely governed, and a certain proportion of Christian churches allowed. In a few days the caravel sailed again at nightfall; but it carried with it two unexpected passengers; the archbishop lost his architect, and the proposed convent lost ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... so-logically cannot escape from it in his conclusion. Then he thinks that this is the law and so ridicules the idea of transcending it. He points to the sequence of cause and effect, by which death, disease, and disaster, hold their sway over the individual, and says that sequence is law. And he is perfectly right so far as he goes—it is a law; but not THE Law. When we have only reached this stage of comprehension, we have yet to learn that ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... are silver-gray Sharp as golden sands, A bell is clanging, people sway Hanging by ...
— Nets to Catch the Wind • Elinor Wylie

... the limits prescribed to their power by nature, they became so entirely convinced that nothing was at their disposal except their own thoughts, that this conviction was of itself sufficient to prevent their entertaining any desire of other objects; and over their thoughts they acquired a sway so absolute, that they had some ground on this account for esteeming themselves more rich and more powerful, more free and more happy, than other men who, whatever be the favors heaped on them by nature and fortune, if destitute of this philosophy, can never command the realization ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes

... and an intelligence merely practical, it was natural for Lady Ogram to imagine that, even as she imposed her authority on others in outward things, so had she sway over their minds; what she willed that others should think, that, she took for granted, they thought. Seeing herself as an entirely beneficent potentate; unable to distinguish for a moment between her arbitrary impulses and ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... John began to sway to and fro. He let fall his murdering sword, he pressed his hands upon his heart, he threw them high. Then suddenly his knees gave beneath him; he sank to the floor a huddled heap and sat there, resting against ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... it was not so easy to do. Something had attracted the crowd to a spot in their rear, and the wine-merchant's wife, caught by its sway, found herself pressed against Anna's acquaintance without power to move away. Their faces were within a few inches of each other, his breath fanned her cheek as well as Anna's. They could do no other than smile at the accident; but neither spoke, and each waited passively. ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy

... this state of things there will be no remedy, the wholesome checks of vice and misery (which have hitherto kept this principle within bounds) will have been done away; the voice of reason will be unheard; the passions only will bear sway; famine, distress, havoc, and dismay will spread around; hatred, violence, war, and bloodshed will be the infallible consequence, and from the pinnacle of happiness, peace, refinement, and social advantage, we shall be hurled once ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... so wanton, but more grave and dull. Love hates that people should hold of any but itself, and goes but faintly to work in familiarities derived from any other title, as marriage is: alliance, dowry, therein sway by reason, as much or more than grace and beauty. Men do not marry for themselves, let them say what they will; they marry as much or more for their posterity and family; the custom and interest of marriage concern our ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... of meikle sway, Who rul'st from pole to pole, And up beyond yon milky way, Where wondrous planets roll: Oh! tell me how a power divine, That tames the creatures wild, Whose touch benign makes all men kin, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... of it calmly now; but there have been moments when the lightest mention of those words would sway my soul to its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... through grace, promising each of you the like of me. And so again, I beg, entreat, and beseech you, that Satan, the devil, the roaring lion, the old dragon, the enemy of all righteousness, may no longer be served by us, by our envy and strifes, where every evil work prevails whilst these bear sway (Isa. iii. 14-16); but that all, from this day forward, may be covered with the mantle of love, and we may on all hands forgive each other heartily, sincerely, and thoroughly, as we do hope and pray that God, for Christ's sake, would forgive each ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... family; and promotion for both the nephews; and, as a further compliment, Clostercamp, the name of the village which was the scene of the brave deed, was added forever to their family name. The pension is paid to this day. For a time, indeed, it was suspended while France was under the sway of the rapacious and insensible murderers of the king who had granted it; but Napoleon restored it; and, amidst all the changes that have since taken place in the government of the country, every succeeding ruler has felt it equally honorable and politic to recognize the eternal ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... sunlight blaze your name on history's pages, As the Saviour of the English colony— Fair Virginia! Raleigh's life-long hope and passion, Vast and proud possession of the Virgin Queen. You alone, Sir President, command the power Simple natives of this beauteous land to sway, Tribes to hold in check; these struggling homes to foster, Realizing dream of years, desire of nations. You alone hold key to knowledge of this country, For the which bold ...
— Pocahontas. - A Poem • Virginia Carter Castleman

... swayed, too, and threw him back. Then he felt himself falling toward the street; but the creaking steps ceased, now by his side, and he felt under him something soft but firm—something that did not sway as the fence had unaccountably done. With his balance thus regained, he discovered the thing that held him to be a woman's arm. A woman's face looked close into his, ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... lowly, pure and holy, Chief among the blessed three; Turning sadness into gladness, Heaven-born art thou Charity. Pity dwelleth in thy bosom, Kindness reigneth o'er thy heart; Gentle thoughts alone can sway thee, Judgment with thee hath ...
— The Good Old Songs We Used to Sing, '61 to '65 • Osbourne H. Oldroyd

... a bad berth. As the ship listed, the stars seemed to sway above me, and my last recollection was of the Great Dipper, performing ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... your tears, Here's no cause for sighs or fears; Command as freely as you may, Enjoyment still shall mark your sway." ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... the effects of these inundations without admiring the prodigious pliability of the organization of the animals which man has subjected to his sway. In Greenland the dog eats the refuse of the fisheries; and when fish are wanting, feeds on seaweed. The ass and the horse, originally natives of the cold and barren plains of Upper Asia, follow man to the New World, return to the wild state, and lead a restless ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... flowers sprang up in her footsteps. Soft breezes escorted her, velvety breezes that carried the aromas of the far-off places from which they came, places far to the southward, and more distant towns beyond the Black Sea whose people were not under the sway ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... consumption," said the doctor. "Now, I can't help saying, Miss Callender,"—the doctor's habitual self-contentment regained sway in his voice and manner,—"that this particular sort of consumption is one of the things that neither medicine nor faith was ever known to heal since the world was made. This young woman's lungs are full of miliary tubercles—little round bodies the size of a millet seed. The tissues ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... until their hearts too are sick with longing and they can hear the song within themselves. Oh, my son, I see far off how the nations shall join in it as in a chorus, and hearing it the rushing planets shall cease from their speed and be steadfast; men shall hold starry sway." The face of the god shone through the face of the old man, and filled with awe, it was so full of secretness. Damon the herdsman passed from his presence and a strange fire was kindled in his heart. Then the two lovers, Dion and Neaera, came in ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... Williams, and shouted something to him. The noise drowned it. Kramer swung back to me, frantic to regain his sway over ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer

... seen in the company of men of his own class, and was hence considered the leader of the nobles or aristocrats, Pericles liked to talk with the poorer class, whom he could easily sway by his eloquent speeches, and who soon made him ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber

... moment of sovereign glory it was for Mathieu and Marianne! They found themselves there in a triumph of which they would never have dared to dream. Life, as if to reward them for having shown faith in her, for having increased her sway with all bravery, seemed to have taken pleasure in prolonging their existences beyond the usual limits so that their eyes might behold the marvellous blossoming of their work. The whole of their dear Chantebled, everything good and beautiful that they had there begotten and established, participated ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... willing to accept an engagement for such a position. In consequence an otherwise intolerable indulgence in examining and employing teachers took place, especially in districts where large landholders had patriarchal sway." (Schmid, K. A., Encydopaedie, ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... and looked fearfully to the coming hours, in town and country. In the old homesteads—poverty and despair. In the cities—wasting cares and sinking hearts. More than ever before, all the vile classes of society rioted and held sway. The forestallers and engrossers drove a busy trade. They seemed to feel that their "time was short"—that the night was coming, in which not even rascals could work! Supplies were hoarded, and doled out at famine prices to the famine-stricken ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... and even while she felt the throbbing of its new life, as yet, she knew not its name. She was young, her observation and her experience had been limited, and there had been no one to prepare her for the certain awakening of this mighty power, before whose conquering sway all else ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... fall of Somerset, Buckingham had governed, with an uncontrolled sway, both the court and nation; and could James's eyes have been opened, he had now full opportunity of observing how unfit his favorite was for the high station to which he was raised. Some accomplishments of a courtier ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... blood the magnet seek— Out from their bounds swell nerve, and pulse, and sense, The veins in tumult would their shores o'erflow; Body to body rapt—and charmed thence, Soul drawn to soul with intermingled glow. Mighty alike to sway the flow and ebb Of the inanimate Matter, or to move The nerves that weave the Arachnean web Of Sentient Life—rules all-pervading Love! Ev'n in the Moral World, embrace and meet Emotions—Gladness clasps the extreme of Care; And Sorrow, at the worst, upon the sweet Breast of young ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... go where she liked if she would but listen to reason; it would ruin him in his profession, he pleaded, if she persisted in returning to the stage. As he talked the pretty face grew harder and older. Bella had made up her mind, and the man beside her had not the faintest power to sway her by ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris

... unto us she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway; Our's is a trophy which will not decay With the Rialto: Shylock and the Moor, And Pierre cannot be swept away—- The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er, For us repeopled ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various

... We flung them away to the winds of fate at the very first call of our land. And each of us offered a willing heart, and the strength of a brawny hand. We are the Army Stevedores, and work we must and may, The cross of honor will never be ours to proudly wear and sway. But the men at the front could not be there, and the battles could not be won. If the stevedores stopped in their dull routine and left their work undone. Somebody has to do this work; be glad that it isn't you. We are the Army Stevedores—give us ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... audible, and the audience leaned forward and listened with breathless interest. Occasionally, during his sermon, he would pause and kneel in silent prayer, and often by his pauses—his very silences—he would reach a degree of eloquence that would sway ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... for France, Jean Talon, the Intendant, had set another exploration in motion. English trade was now in full sway on Hudson Bay. In possession of the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Illinois, the Great Lakes, France controlled all avenues of approach to the Great Northwest except Hudson Bay. This she had lost through injustice to Radisson; ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... not only turning the season of warm affections, and yet of unopened passion, into strife and rancour, but seizing upon the inherent and reigning vice of our bosoms, which he should have seized to crush, in order only by that master-vice to weave our characters, and sway our conduct to his will, whenever a cool-blooded and merciless policy required us to be of that will the minions and the tools. Thus had he taken hold of the diseased jealousy of Aubrey, and by that handle, joined to the latent spring of superstition, guided ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... corner where, still feeble unto impotence, we were beset by blasts of wind which laid hold on us with such rude strength that the very ground seemed to sway like sea-drift, the cry of the man who looked as if he were trying to fly away evoked other like cries: "There must be ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... passed without rest or deviation from the course. Vegetation entirely ceased. The sand, so crusted on the surface that it broke into rattling flakes at every step, held undisputed sway. The Jebel was out of view, and there was no landmark visible. The shadow that before followed had now shifted to the north, and was keeping even race with the objects which cast it; and as there was no ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... and—a lurking suspicion, of which he was ashamed. As a business man, he had been taught to look for interested motives lying at the back of every action, bad or good,—and as his health improved, and calm reason again asserted its sway, he found it difficult and well-nigh impossible to realise or to believe that this woman, to whom he was a perfect stranger, no more than a vagrant on the road, could have given him so much of her time, attention, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... buccaneers. One can imagine, for example, some leading modern politician—let us say a Welshman—who, like Morgan, being a brilliant public speaker, is able by his eloquence to sway vast crowds of listeners, whether buccaneers or electors, a man of quick and subtle mind, able to recognize and seize upon the main chance, perfectly ruthless in his methods when necessity requires, and one who, having achieved the goal ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... Arch type of sway, Meetly your over-ruling ray You fling from Asia's plain, Whence flashed the javelins abroad Of many a wild incursive horde Led ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... by an insistent rapping on the wall between her room and Bea's. Startled at last wide awake, she asked what was the trouble. Upon receiving no audible reply, she hurried around through the corridor to the door. She heard the key turned as she grasped the knob. An instant later she felt Bea sway against her and stand choking for breath, her hands to ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... black and white sheep. The race of Timour would have been extinct, if a hero, his descendant in the fifth degree, had not fled before the Uzbek arms to the conquest of Hindostan. His successors (the great Moguls [71]) extended their sway from the mountains of Cashmir to Cape Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal. Since the reign of Aurungzebe, their empire had been dissolved; their treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber; and the richest of their kingdoms ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... do not weep for Pilate—who could prove Regret for him whose cold and crushing sway No prayer can soften, no appeal can move: Who tramples hearts as others trample clay, Yet with a faltering, an uncertain tread, That might stir up reprisal ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

... dominion of his wife over him, but his fear of Theodora; but now that Theodora was dead, as I have told you, he thought nothing about Photius or any of his intimates, but entirely submitted to the sway of his wife, and her pander Calligonus. Then at last all men ceased to believe in him, scorned and flouted him, and railed at him for an idiot. Such were the offences of Belisarius, about which I have been obliged to speak freely ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius

... meekest man on earth, and yet, when the Jews had worshiped the golden calf and provoked God to anger, he put many of them to death, and thereby made atonement before God. Likewise it is not fitting that the magistrates should be idle and allow sin to have sway, and that we say nothing. My own possessions, my honor, my injury, I must not regard, nor grow angry because of them; but God's honor and Commandment we must protect, and injury or injustice to our neighbor we must prevent, the magistrates with the sword, ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther

... ever mused in silence upon a summer's day And let your thoughts run riot and your feelings have full sway, As you sprawled full length upon the grass in some secluded dell And breathed the balmy country air, ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck

... and did not know where to hide himself, when the woman before him seemed to be unconscious of his existence. The Vicomtesse had raised the forefinger of her right hand, and gracefully signed to the Marquis to seat himself beside her. The Marquis felt the imperious sway of passion in her gesture; he came back towards her. Eugene watched him, not without a feeling ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... to account for the appearance of this great Phenomenon, with its orderly phases of evolution, and its own spontaneous (1) growths in all corners of the globe—this phenomenon which has had such a strange sway over the hearts of men, which has attracted them with so weird a charm, which has drawn out their devotion, love and tenderness, which has consoled them in sorrow and affliction, and yet which has stained their history ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... ascended a throne that, by the energies of his father, had extended its sway over almost the whole island of Great Britain. At the period of his decease, Edward I. was prosecuting the conquest of Scotland, and left, according to Froissart, a solemn charge to his successor, ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip

... gathering waves could disturb them, so long as the storm continued to come out of the south-west, for they were now cruising along the northern shore of the great lake, where the Dominion of Canada held sway, and not Uncle Sam. ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter

... Hendrick Potgeiter, penetrated the interior as far as the Cashan Mountains, whence a Zulu or Caffre chief, named Mosilikatze, had been expelled by the well-known Caffre Dingaan; and a glad welcome was given them by the Bechuana tribes, who had just escaped the hard sway of that cruel chieftain. They came with the prestige of white men and deliverers; but the Bechuanas soon found, as they expressed it, "that Mosilikatze was cruel to his enemies, and kind to those he conquered; but that the Boers destroyed their enemies, and made slaves of their ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... ocean, are all held and supported by the prowess of the high-souled Vasudeva. The whole mobile and immobile universe with the deities, Asuras, and Gandharvas, Yakshas, Uragas and Rakshasas, is under the sway of Krishna. The senses, mind, understanding, life, energy, strength and memory, it has been said, have Vasudeva for their soul. Indeed, this body that is called Kshetra, and the intelligent soul within, that is called the knower of Kshetra, also have ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... to be removed by the exit of Andrew Johnson from the White House. In his place a man of blood and iron—for such was the estimate at that time placed upon Grant—had been elected President. The Republicans in Congress, checked for a time by Johnson, were at length to have entire sway under Thaddeus Stevens. Reconstruction was to be thorough and merciless. To meet these conditions was the first requirement of the Courier-Journal, a newspaper conducted by outlawed rebels and published on the sectional border line. The task was not ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... however, rarely used because about the year 1856 it was discovered that dyes could be obtained from coal tar, the thick sticky liquid formed as a by-product in the manufacture of coal gas. These artificial coal-tar, or aniline, dyes have practically undisputed sway to-day, and the vast areas of land formerly used for the cultivation of vegetable dyes are now free ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... moralist or philosopher—order, soberness, and regularity of life; for we are apt to distrust the intellect that we fancy can be swayed by circumstance or passion; and we know how circumstance and passion WILL sway the intellect: how mortified vanity will form excuses for itself; and how temper turns angrily upon conscience, that reproves it. How often have we called our judge our enemy, because he has given sentence against us!—How often have we called the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... not at once understand what he had read; he read it a second time, and his head began to swim, the ground began to sway under his feet like the deck of a ship in a rolling sea. He began to cry out and gasp and weep ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... over Dickens' tomb, visioning the man who, by the far-reaching genius of his pen, could sway multitudes to laughter ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... England thus reorganised now set itself to contest the political superiority of France in a long and bloody war, which consequently became a struggle between two rival forms of polity; and while the first of these bore sway over the rest of Europe, the other attained to complete realisation in its island-home, and called forth at a later time manifold imitations on the Continent also, when the Continent was torn by civil strife. Between these differing tendencies, these opposite poles, the life of Europe ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... to time, and in consequence of this very movement, the ancient slang crops up again and becomes new once more. It has its headquarters where it maintains its sway. The Temple preserved the slang of the seventeenth century; Bicetre, when it was a prison, preserved the slang of Thunes. There one could hear the termination in anche of the old Thuneurs. Boyanches-tu (bois-tu), do you drink? But perpetual ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... brief Village, etc., and had not begun his tales. Thalaba, indeed, had been published, and no doubt was not without effect on Scott himself; but it was not popular, and the author was still under the sway of the craze against rhyme. To all intents and purposes the poet was addressing the public, in a work combining the attractions of fiction with the attractions of verse at considerable length, for the first time since ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... his interest, sister, out of regard to yours. I know he is under the sway of another fair one; it will be a discredit to your charms if you call him back, and he does ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere

... a Corpus Christi procession, and drink a glass of white Hungarian wine. Near Petronelle are the remains of an old Roman wall, extending from the Danube to a lake called the Neusiedler See. My companions say it was built 2,000 years ago, when the sway of the Romans extended over such parts of Europe as were worth the trouble and expense of swaying. The roads are found rather rough and inferior, on account of loose stones and uneven surface, as we push forward toward Presburg, passing through a dozen villages whose streets are carpeted ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... just to the right of the present entrance; Louis XII., the edifice through which one enters the inner court and which extends far to the left, including also the chapel immediately to the rear; while Francois I., who here as elsewhere let his unbounded Italian proclivities have full sway, built the extended wing to the left of the inner court and fronting on the present Place du Chateau, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... the Czarina that she should accede to the peace which they were negociating with Austria, and that all conquests should be restored. This she flatly refused; but subsequently, being deprived of lier ally, and seeing that it was at present impossible for her to subjugate Turkey to her sway, she offered to restore all her acquisitions, except the city and dependencies of Oczakow, an important place, commanding the mouth of the Dnieper, at a distance of less than two hundred miles off the Turkish capital. As this offer exhibited an inclination on ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... have just lapsed into history have done much to loosen the hold of some of the baleful insular prejudices which heretofore held sway over the minds of nearly all sections of the British nation. It may well be, therefore, that we are now better able to grasp the significance of the principal events of the war, and to seek it not in their immediate ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... he might succeed in sowing seeds of discord amongst those who had been so ready to accede to the new proposal; any moment even now—a chance word spoken, a trifling incident, an incipient quarrel might sway these men and bring them back to their allegiance to himself. He had been so sure of their support; the banquet this night had been destined to set the seal to their fealty and to cement their friendship: it was more than exasperating that the suggestion ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... We, however, allowed the king to retain nominal possession of his capital till 1815, when, in consequence of his repeated acts of cruelty, the chiefs invited us to depose him, and the whole island has ever since been under British sway, except during a serious insurrection which lasted from 1817 to 1819, and various other less important attempts at insurrection which have happily without difficulty ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... Can storied Urn or animated Bust Back to its Mansion call the fleeting Breath? Can Honour's Voice provoke the silent Dust, Or Flatt'ry sooth the dull cold Ear of Death! Perhaps in this neglected Spot is laid Some Heart once pregnant with celestial Fire, Hands that the Reins of Empire might have sway'd, Or wak'd to Extacy the living Lyre. But Knowledge to their Eyes her ample Page Rich with the Spoils of Time did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repress'd their noble Rage, And froze the genial Current ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray

... be becalmed, or have a contrary wind." That the Duke trembled and demurred to such odds is not wonderful; but the words have singular interest, both as showing the clear tactical apprehensions that held sway in Nelson's mind, and still more, at the moment then present, as marking unmistakably his gradual conversion to the policy of remaining in the Mediterranean, and pursuing the most ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... nineteen hundreds he would have studied, I think, sociology and economics instead of theology and biology. He would have attacked, in England, the House of Lords instead of Oxford, and had an eye for the intellectuals who are beginning to sway the mighty power of the labor unions. He would have been a Radical-Conservative and voted against both the British Labor party and the Coalition. In America he would have lashed the trusts, execrated the Anti-Saloon League, admired and been exasperated ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... the same as if he had never learned it. A man must get a thing before he can forget it. There is a great world of ideas we cannot voluntarily recall,—they are outside the limits of the will. But they sway our conscious thought as the unseen planets influence the movements of those within the sphere of vision. No man knows how much he knows,—how many ideas he has,—any more than he knows how many blood-globules roll in his veins. Sometimes ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... main hall, the Bourgeois, or partners, of the great North-West Company were holding their annual General Assembly behind closed doors. Clerks lowered their voices when they passed that room, and well they might; for the rulers inside held despotic sway over a domain as large as Europe. And what were they decreeing? Who can tell? The archives of the great fur companies are as jealously guarded as diplomatic documents, and more remarkable for what they omit than what ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... Court and favour. He was sent Lord- Deputy into Ireland, as it was then apprehended, for a kind of haughtiness and repugnancy in Council; or, as others have thought, the fittest person then to bridle the insolences of the Irish; and probable it is that both, considering the sway that he would have at the Board, being head in the Queen's favour, concurred, and did alike conspire his remove and ruin. But into Ireland he went, where he did the Queen very great and many services, if the surplusage of the measure did not abate the value of the merit, as ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... utility, pleasure, or virtue, all resting on common interests of some impersonal sort, are far from possessing the quality of love, its thrill, flutter, and absolute sway over happiness and misery. But it may well fall to such influences to awaken or feed the passion where it actually arises. Whatever circumstances pave the way, love does not itself appear until a sexual affinity is declared. When a woman, for instance, contemplating marriage, asks herself whether ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... with pride how "his empire reached from the Arctic Ocean to the Pyrenees;" there was no monarch save the Emperor himself who ruled over such vast domains. But even the Emperor did not gather under his sway a grouping of peoples so strangely divided in race, in tongue, in aims, in history. No common tie of custom or of sympathy united the unwieldy bundle of states bound together in a common subjection; the men of Aquitaine hated Anjou with as intense a bitterness ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... admit that genius sometimes is great enough to bring into harmonious action all powers of the individual under its sway; but education mainly strives to unfold the imperfect, to balance, the ununified elements. Even genius, however, needs direction and adjustment to secure the most perfect and reliable results. How, then, shall we develop the motive, ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick

... Head," the most famous of these hostelries, has been removed to make room for the post-office. This latter inn was the original of "The Marquis of Granby, Dorking," where that substantial person, Mr. Weller, Senior, lived, and under the sway of Mrs. Weller the veteran coachman smoked his pipe and practised patience, while the "shepherd" imbibed hot pineapple rum and water and dispensed spiritual consolation to the flock. An old stage-coachman who lived years ago at Dorking is said to have been Dickens's original ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... matter, will leave off listening to him if he grows less noisy? And it is then perhaps a great politician is marred or made. Perhaps it often depends very much upon the main influence that held sway when the moment came to leave off shouting. That moment had come for van Hert, and he had the perspicacity to perceive it; though whether he would have acted upon his wiser judgment, left entirely to himself, it is impossible to say. It is, on the whole, pleasanter to think ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... Coniston cheerfully. But Bob reflected, as he walked back to his rooms in the dark through the snow-laden streets, that Cynthia, young though she might be, possessed principles from which no love would sway her a hair's breadth. How, indeed, was she to live with Jethro once ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... natty servant gave notice, and Mrs. Butt called and suggested that she should resume her sway over him. But she did ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... affection of men in whose eyes he was not so much a prince, a feudal lord, as an indulgent and doting father. He was the ideal despot, a man of wide culture and simple tastes. "A smile," he used to say, "will sway the Universe." Simplicity he declared to be the keynote of his nature, the guiding motive of his governance. In exemplification whereof he would point to his method of collecting taxes—a marvel of simplicity. Each citizen paid what he liked. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... know but what you are right, Florez; and as we are lords and masters after marriage, it is but fair, that they should hold their uninterrupted sway before. I feel more attached to her than ever; and if she chooses to play the tyrant, why she shall. It shows her good sense; for keeping us off, is the only way to induce us ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... of what Nature was ever giving him with a liberal hand in the whorls of shells, the veins of leaves, the life of flames, the convolutions of serpents, the curly tresses of woman, the lazy grace of clouds, the easy sway of tendrils, flowers, and human motion. He was no literal interpreter of her whispered secrets. But the Grace of his Art was a deliberate grace,—a grace of thought and study. His lines were creations, and not instincts or imitations. They came from the depth of his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... the change is not due to his death, Gwen. Clare has found out for herself the truth of Nannie's verse for her. She was always restless until she came to the Rest-giver, and now she is at peace. Circumstances do not sway her as they used ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre

... the pastimes of the glad, Full oft is pleased a wayward dart to throw, Sending sad shadows after things not sad, Peopling the harmless fields with sighs of wo. Beneath her sway, a simple forest cry Becomes an echo of man's misery. What wonder? at her bidding ancient lays Steeped in dire grief the voice of Philomel, And that blithe messenger of summer days, The swallow, twittered, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various

... had uniformly-foretold that the hopes held out, as it seemed very reasonably, of better treatment resulting from the stoppage of the supply of hands, were fallacious. All else had supposed that interest might operate on men whom principle had failed to sway; that they whom no feelings of compassion for their fellow-creatures could move to do their duty, might be touched by a feeling of their own advantage, when interest coincided with duty. The Slave-mart ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... an Execusec conducted him to the door of the "Think-Box." He stared disapprovingly after her. "When the Soldiers hold sway, modesty will be ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds

... Considering the vast sway of the Dutch in India, it is strange that they should not have any factory in China. They have indeed formerly sent ambassadors to that country, under pretence of demanding a free trade, but in reality on purpose to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... dilate and contract as I had thought cats' pupils only could do, until I saw those of the chasseur. To be sure, canny as Tom is, the chasseur had the advantage in the more intelligent expression. He seemed to have obtained most complete sway over his master or patron, whose looks he watched, and whose steps he followed, with a kind of distrustful interest that puzzled ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... were the ancient people, and the gods loved old things, as those new folk would find. Very especially he hated the men of Athens. Had not one of their captains, Militades, beaten the Lemnians and brought the island under Athenian sway? True, it was a rule only in name, for any Athenian who came alone to Lemnos would soon be cleaving the air from the highest cliff-top. But the thought irked his pride, and he gloated over the Persians' coming. The Great King from beyond the deserts would smite those outrageous ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... mutual love and trust in which the family of Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood were reared. In other respects their upbringing was what one would naturally expect in a Yorkshire country-house, where politics were judiciously blended with fox-hunting. From the enjoyments of a bright home, and the benign sway of the governess, and the companionship of a favourite sister, the transition to a private school is always depressing. In April, 1849, Charles Wood was sent to the Rev. Charles Arnold's, at Tinwell, near Stamford. "What ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... sensitive needle was unaffected by any of the steel parts used in the construction of the vessel. But let any other vessel, save of course a wooden ship, come within a thousand yards, the needle began to tremble and sway, and the nearer the Flying Fish approached it, the steadier it became and the more directly it pointed towards the object. If the vessel was on the surface, it of course pointed upward: if it was a submarine, it pointed either level or downwards with unerring precision. ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... trembling bird, have drawn her down Into his pois'nous fangs. How frail our sex! Prudence may guard us from th' assaults of passion, But storm'd the citadel, in woman's heart, Victorious love admits no armistice Or sway conjoint. He garrisons ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... the young bulls approached the wood alone; and then the "monarch of the chase," who had been lashing himself up for vengeance, came out and, in a short time, killed his antagonist. He then quietly joined the herd, and long held undisputed sway. Admiral Sir B.J. Sulivan informs me that, when he lived in the Falkland Islands, he imported a young English stallion, which frequented the hills near Port William with eight mares. On these hills ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin



Words linked to "Sway" :   vibrate, tilt, power, rock, lash, oscillate, act upon, anti-sway bar, powerfulness, shake, swing, move, swag, work, displace, weave, influence, roll, waver, nutate, pitch, carry, hold sway, pitching, move back and forth



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