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Challenging   Listen
adjective
challenging  adj.  
1.
Requiring full use of one's abilities or resources; as, challenging task.
Synonyms: ambitious, demanding.
2.
Disposed to or engaged in defiance of established authority.
Synonyms: insubordinate, resistant, resistive.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Challenging" Quotes from Famous Books



... until suddenly the need of deeds set him bolt upright in bed, and he called to Mrs. Brackett to bring him pencil and paper. From that time on he was seldom without them, and, by turns reading and writing, entered with hope and fortitude into the challenging field of literature. And from the first, however ignorant and unkempt the effort, he wrote a kind of literature, for he buckled to no work that he knew, and was forever striving after an ideal (nebulous, indescribable, and far) of his own, and that is literature. Go to those who have wrought ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris

... back into the room and looked at her. She was standing up, coming towards him; a faint tinge of pink colour had stained her cheek—her bosom was heaving—her eyes were challenging his with a light which needed no borrowed brilliancy. Go with her! The man's birthright, his passion, which through the long days of his austere life had lain dormant and undreamt of swept up from his heart. He held out his arms, and she came across the room to him with a sweet ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and delicate charm. And all that was nothing in the estimation of Mr. Prohack compared with her glance. At intervals in the fox-trot he caught the glance. It was arch, flirtatious, eternally youthful, challenging; and it expressed pleasure in the fox-trot. Mr. Prohack was dancing better than ever before in his career as a dancer. She made him dance better. She was not the same woman whom he had first met at lunch at the Grand Babylon ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... violence is deadly and large swaths of the countryside are under guerrilla influence, the movement lacks the military strength or popular support necessary to overthrow the government. An anti-insurgent army of paramilitaries has grown to be several thousand strong in recent years, challenging the insurgents for control of territory and illicit industries such as the drug trade and the government's ability to exert its dominion over rural areas. While Bogota steps up efforts to reassert government ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... in the Spectator; and we looked, with disdain on the level territory on the banks of the Usk, and longed for hills to climb, and walls to get over, and rocks to overcome, like knights-errant in search of adventures. No walk was too great for us. We thought of challenging Captain Barclay to a match against time, or of travelling through England as the Pedestrian Wonders. Walker, the twopenny postman, would have had no chance against us. So, merely by way of practice, we started off one day, with straw-hats and short summer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... of Castille. But years passed by, Amadeus had come and gone, they had even proclaimed a republic! And yet the cause of God did not seem to advance much, and Heaven seemed deaf. A republican deputy proclaimed a war against God, challenging Him to silence him; and so impiety stalked along immune and triumphant, and its eloquence flowed abroad like ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... price fixed, which in Nelson was one pound per acre for hilly land, and two pounds for flat land suitable for cultivation. Nobody could purchase outright a run or portion of it while another occupier held the goodwill of it without first challenging the latter, who retained the presumptive ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... are the most favorable conditions possible—an evening walk through the streets of a great city. Some men can invite their souls only in sylvan solitudes, but the flare of light, the clash of traffic, the kaleidoscopic procession of humanity, with its challenging contrasts shifting and seething on great metropolitan highways, breed in my mind a sense of calm, cool remoteness in which all the glitter and excitement of the spectacle suggests ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... of clothier and draper without serving his time or purchasing his freedom; that he sold goods that were not marketable without the stamp; that he himself was more fit for a bully than a tradesman, and went about through all the country fairs challenging people to fight prizes, wrestling and cudgel-play, and ...
— English Satires • Various

... journals, and this party, had maintained, so long as any degree of free speech was permitted, that Austria had provoked the danger, and they were fully aware that the German Government had from first to last approved of and openly assisted in provoking, nay challenging, Russia on a question which involved the latter's prestige and ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith

... the Cardinal, who did not like the turn the conversation had taken, especially the challenging of the Bible, which just now he wished to use for ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... which arose between the President and the Senate as to the interpretation and administration of the existing law was pending. I thought, as a party man, that I had hardly the right to interfere with the matter which was under the special charge of my honorable friend from Vermont, by challenging a debate upon the general subject from a ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford

... questions of law? I fear that he has worn or torn through the filament that divides the workings of the healthy mind from the visions of the dreamer—wrecked on the everlasting old rocks that jut out all about our shores, and always challenging us to dash upon them. Shall we know when we die? Shall we die when we know? After all, are not these things to be known? Why place them under our eyes so that a child of five years will ask questions that no mortal, or immortal, has yet solved? Have we ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... you are not challenging contradiction, Miss Vanrenen?" he said, with deliberate resolve not to let her slip back thus easily into the role of ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... English displayed their energy in distant seas. It now became simply a question of the efficiency of sea-power. If this was not a quality of that of the English, then their efforts were bound to fail; and, more than this, the position of their country, challenging as it did what was believed to be the greatest of maritime states, would have been altogether precarious. The principal expeditions now undertaken were distinguished by a characteristic peculiar to the people, and ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge

... the pine-wood logs in the Grecian Urn at the edge of the broad base of the statue. As the flames began to mount, Vida Milholland stepped forward and without accompaniment sang again from that spot of beauty, in her own challenging way, the Woman's Marseillaise. Even the small boys in the crowd, always the most difficult to please, cheered and ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... flash, Susan was on her feet, challenging his statements, and as the dauntless champion of women debated the question with the dark-skinned fiery Negro, the friendship and warm affection built up between them over the years occasionally shone through the sharp words they ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... he had blotted a thousand' says Ben Jonson: and Ben Jonson was right. Shakespeare could have blotted out two or three thousand lines: he was great enough to afford it. Somewhere Matthew Arnold supposes us as challenging Shakespeare over this and that weak or bombastic passage, and Shakespeare answering with his tolerant smile, that no doubt we were right, but after ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... cheeks come back. For him they indicated the pink of physical condition. He became the acknowledged strong man of Sonoma Valley, the heaviest lifter and hardest winded among a husky race of farmer folk. And once a year he celebrated his birthday in the old-fashioned frontier way, challenging all the valley to come up the hill to the ranch and be put on its back. And a fair portion of the valley responded, brought the women-folk and children along, and ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... had been driven through the gate-way into their hay-field, and Fred had checked his horse, when Hiram Ford, observing himself at a safe challenging distance, turned back and shouted a defiance which he did ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... challenging gaze steadily. A sharper observer than Mary Blythe might have detected the faintest shadow of a cloud in the ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... there was that distinction in her clothing that betrayed her to be one of the few who may be always individual yet always in the fashion. She was a woman, quick, dynamic, impatient, who vitalized the very atmosphere in which she moved, challenging life by endless tests and measures, scornful of admiration, and ambitious, even in this recognized ambition of finding herself beautiful, prominent, and a rich man's wife, for something further and greater, she knew not what. She was an important figure in this world of hers; her ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... President of the Ministry since 1862 has faced, almost alone, the solid phalanx of the Liberals, replying to their ebullitions of pride and confidence in their own strain, and answering on the spot and with brilliant presence of mind their sarcastic and malicious attacks, yes even challenging them with witty impromptus, and hurting his opponents to the core? Yes, he is the same man, and occasionally he can be as witty and bitter as he used to be. But since his great victories he has shown the more serious demeanor of a statesman. He is calmly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... Athenians first, while ye ranged yourselves opposite to our slaves. These are not at all the deeds of good men in war, but we were deceived in you very greatly; for we expected by reason of your renown that ye would send a herald to us, challenging us and desiring to fight with the Persians alone; but though we on our part were ready to do this, we did not find that ye said anything of this kind, but rather that ye cowered with fear. Now therefore since ye were not the first to say this, we are the first. Why ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... but they felt it ought to be left in readiness for a flight that might have no second to waste. Now, with eyes sharply challenging the shadows, they stole along the ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... rubbed the leather roughly over his face, leaving patches of dirt and grease on the skin. Then he turned and looked Wolf straight in the eyes. "Do you see that, fellow?" the triumphant challenging look seemed to say: "Your comrade must abase himself to the level of the beasts, if we so will it,—we, who have ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... the servant's words and his direct, almost challenging look held the girl. Usually self-contained as she was, she felt that perhaps he had caught some fleeting expression in her eyes, when at his abrupt appearance she had lifted them with a start from the brass letters. The proud head ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... target. Walter Pennold slumped and crumpled down into his chair, his arms outspread upon the table. He laid his head upon them, and a single dry, shuddering sob tore its way from his throat. The woman backed slowly away, and for the first time a shadow as of approaching terror crossed her hard, challenging face. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... eclipsed by a stranger, the General threw a challenging glance in her direction, and, striking out vigorously in a straight line, he sped swiftly toward the other ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa

... a little and reached far forward for a stone that lay among the weeds down there. He spoke to me sidewise with a challenging flicker of the eye. Barbara kept her ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... that while their first impact with city poverty allied them to groups given over to discussion of social theories , their sober efforts to heal neighborhood ills allied them to general public movements which were without challenging creeds. But while we discovered that we most easily secured the smallest of much-needed improvements by attaching our efforts to those of organized bodies, nevertheless these very organizations would have been ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... claimants, the infinite perspective opens out. The scale of the symphony is incalculably prolonged. The more imperative ideals now begin to speak with an altogether new objectivity and significance, and to utter the penetrating, shattering, {213} tragically challenging note of appeal. They ring out like the call of Victor Hugo's alpine eagle, "qui parle au precipice et que le gouffre entend," and the strenuous mood awakens at the sound. It saith among the trumpets, ha, ha! it smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... monarchs, I stand here resolved to fight!' Kuru prince, endued with great energy, thus addressing the assembled monarchs and the king of Kasi, took upon his car those maidens. And having taken them up, he sped his chariot away, challenging the invited kings ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... the arm from the balcony, he allowed himself to drop amidst the crowd, which began to draw back from a house that rained men. Raoul was on the ground as soon as he, both sword in hand. All the musketeers on the Place heard that challenging cry—all turned round at that cry, and recognized D'Artagnan. "To the captain, to the captain!" cried they, in their turn. And the crowd opened before them as though before the prow of a vessel. At that moment D'Artagnan and Menneville found ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... "despite your lack of Greek and Latin I would not shrink from challenging the greatest Greek and Roman tragedians to see how you bear comparison ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... and he fluttered the pages of his book as he answered us slowly: "Restless, feverish Titans, forever challenging the great gods of Love and War. Give me the dappled shade of a green garden, the sable shadows quivering on a ground of gold, a book of verse by me to play with when I would be busy, and a swarm of sweet ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... Mr S—-. "Sullivan is of good family; the Sullivans of Bally cum Poop. He was some time in the 48th regiment, and was obliged to retire from it for challenging his colonel." ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... was not without a certain admiration for these exceptional characters; nor did he measure without a certain amazement these revolted Titans, challenging his god; he felt they were in no sense common men—neither those who had stabbed Sir John in the Chartreuse of Seillon, nor those who had shot the bishop of Vannes at the village of ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... of the evening went to Lola read in the next issue of the Californian that "the applause was all sham, the paid enthusiasm of a hired house." This was more than flesh and blood could stand. At any rate, it was more than Lola could stand; and she sent the editor a fierce letter, challenging him to a duel. "I must request," was its last passage, "that this affair of honour be arranged by your seconds as soon as possible, as my time is quite as valuable as your own: MARIE ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... brief space he stands scowling up at the porch as though challenging all and sundry to perform this feat, then, taking his wife by the arm, moves off with her and the still insistent child towards the beach. The crowd on the pavement, regretfully convinced that the entertainment is at an end, disperses slowly. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various

... seem likely to touch on a reality, I woke up forthwith, in spite of myself. I recollect well, for instance, a squabble about challenging the jurymen; and my counsel's voice of pious indignation, as he asked, "Do you call these agricultural gentlemen, and farmers, however excellent and respectable—on which point Heaven forbid that I, &c., &c.—the prisoner's 'pares,' peers, equals, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... could baffle any accusation. His expectations were so far well-founded, that, although, despite his rank as regent of the kingdom and guardian of the king, he was thrown into prison by the ephors, he succeeded, by his intrigues and influence, in procuring his enlargement: and boldly challenging his accusers, he offered to submit ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... George IV., and received presents of weapons from him. But the moral Hunghi brought home was, "There is but one king in England. There shall be but one in New Zealand." And this consummation he endeavoured to bring about by challenging a hostile chief whom he met on his way back from Sydney to New Zealand. He gained the battle, by arranging his men in the form of a wedge, and likewise by the number of muskets with which he was able to arm them. When the chief himself fell by ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... the camps, and now some small part of his love of the upper air came back to lead him towards his grave. With face turned to the solitudes of the snows, with ever-faltering steps, he commenced his challenging march towards death. ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... tantalized himself by trying to ignore it. But it was strange the fascination that it held for him. He had the feeling that behind his back the face had changed from the profile position in which it had been painted, so that the steady stone-gray eyes were challenging his attention. At last he resisted no longer; walking over to the fireplace, he stood gazing up ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... grass, nursing the timid [15] spray, stirring the soft breeze; rippling all nature in ceaseless flow, with "breath all odor and cheek all bloom." Whatever else droops, spring is gay: her little feet trip lightly on, turning up the daisies, paddling the water- cresses, rocking the oriole's cradle; challenging the sed- [20] entary shadows to activity, and the streams to race for the sea. Her dainty fingers put the fur cap on pussy-willow, paint in pink the petals of arbutus, and sweep in soft strains her Orphean lyre. "The voice of the turtle is heard in our land." The snow-bird ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... the band make the challenging sign of the order, by cocking and snapping their gun-locks. The Captain then proposes the second oath, the candidate ...
— The Oaths, Signs, Ceremonies and Objects of the Ku-Klux-Klan. - A Full Expose. By A Late Member • Anonymous

... expecting Sir R. Ford's calling on me, I took coach and to the Sessions-house, where I have a mind to hear Bazill Fielding's case—[See May 9th, 1667]—tried; and so got up to the Bench, my Lord Chief-Justice Keeling being Judge. Here I stood bare, not challenging, though I might well enough, to be covered. But here were several fine trials; among others, several brought in for making it their trade to set houses on fire merely to get plunder; and all proved by the two little boys spoken of yesterday ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... Titian's fine martial challenging John the Baptist is the great picture of the next room, No. XIX. Here also are good but not transcendent portraits by Titian, Tintoretto, and Lotto, and the Battle of Lepanto, with heavenly interference, ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... borders became as safe, and peaceable, as any part of the entire kingdome, so as in the fourth yeare of the king's raigne, as well gentlemen as others, inhabiting the places aforesayde, finding the auncient wast ground to be very good and fruitefull, began to contende in lawe about their bounds, challenging then, that for their hereditarie right, which formerly they disavowed, only to avoyde charge ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... of course," said the girl slowly. "Father has been fighting him ever since he went into politics; but I never saw Mr. Benhem close enough to speak to him until the other evening." She raised her black lashes and looked straight at Stephen with her challenging glance. "All the men ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... the fort, and burned every stack of hay and every useful thing which was not within reach of the guns of the fortress. The cattle were all killed, and no person could venture outside of the fort. The Indians, keeping beyond the reach of gun-shot, danced with insulting and defiant gestures, challenging the English to come out, and mocking them with the groans and pious invocations which they had extorted from ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... him fast. But right anon a thousand people *in thrast* *rushed in* To save the knight, for ruth and for pity For knowen was the false iniquity. The people anon had suspect* in this thing, *suspicion By manner of the clerke's challenging, That it was by th'assent of Appius; They wiste well that he was lecherous. For which unto this Appius they gon, And cast him in a prison right anon, Where as he slew himself: and Claudius, That servant was unto this Appius, Was doomed for to hang upon a tree; But that Virginius, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... a nervous picket set the camp in uproar by challenging a phantom of his imagination. We were all impatient as hounds in leash. Since they would not come up and give us battle we wanted to be off and have it out with them. And the people were tired of delay. The cry of 'ste'boy!' was ringing ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... and more to the south, sailing in three divisions in line ahead. Evertszoon was in command of the van; De Ruyter of the centre; Van Tromp of the rear. There were more than a hundred sail. Monk stood towards them before a light breeze, challenging battle in the fashion of the time with much sounding of trumpets and beating of drums. But De Ruyter kept his distance, working to the southward outside the tangle of shallows in the Thames estuary. All day the fleets drifted slowly, keeping out of gunshot range. ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... Wife to any Husband, or A Woman's Last Word; or into reflective and speculative, if bitter, retrospect, as in The Worst of It or James Lee's Wife. And happiness, equally,—even the lover's happiness,—needed, to satisfy Browning, to have some leaven of challenging disquiet; the lover must have something to fear, or something to forgive, some hostility, or guilt, or absence, or death, to brave. Or the rapturous union of lovers must be remembered with a pang, when they have quarrelled; or its joy be sobered ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... Oued Tolga. Not unnatural—and in spite of all, I can't help being a little sorry for the man. We've humiliated and got the better of him, because we happen to have his secret. It's a bit like draining a chap's blood, and then challenging him to fight. He's got all he can expect now, in receiving the child back and if I can judge him by myself, he'll be so happy, that he'll be only too thankful to see our backs ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... knew what he was doing, while those who opposed him did not. Bors had declared himself a pirate on Tralee, and here off Garen he'd claimed the same status. But no Mekinese, as yet, knew why he'd outlawed himself, nor his purpose in challenging a line battleship to fight. It seemed like the raving, hysterical hatred of men with no motive but hate. But it wasn't. The Isis could have sent down a missile with a limited-yield warhead if its ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... white man did not hear. Sheeta was crouching for the spring, and then, shrill and horrible, there rose from the stillness of the jungle the awful cry of the challenging ape, and Sheeta ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... met R. Jones' now, were cold and challenging. She, too, had learned the trick of swift diagnosis of character, and what she saw of R. Jones in that first glance did not ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... reign Arthur fought twelve memorable battles, and, not content with this activity, often rode out like other knights-errant in quest of adventure, challenging any one who wanted to fight, rescuing captives, and aiding damsels in distress. In these encounters Arthur wore the peerless armor made by Merlin, and sometimes carried a shield so brilliant that it blinded all who gazed upon it. It was, therefore, generally covered with a close-fitting ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... simply and beautifully above the flat country, and beneath it palms and ship's masts look very lowly things indeed. It seems a perfect conductor of thought from earth to sky; the gentle concave curves of its sides are more natural lines of repose than those of our challenging spires. I had been prepared for little—pictures and photographs have dwarfed the thing—they do not give the firmness and delicacy in form and the sentiment that it inspires. It is like the Burmans religion; there's a sense of happiness in the way its wide gold base amongst ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... he had given no public proof at all of their truth. Such a man was not likely to be unwilling that his verses should be seen: and in particular such poems as the epitaph on Lady Winchester, whose death aroused much public interest, or the Ode on the Nativity, plainly challenging the greatest of his predecessors by its high theme and noble art, are almost sure to have got about ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... bag?" asked Tim sweetly. He turned the key in the lock and then dropped it in his pocket. Don took a stride forward, but was met by Tim's challenging frown. "There's no seven-one train for you tonight, Donald," said Tim quietly, "nor any other night. Put your bag down, old dear, and hang your overcoat ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour

... disentangle the action of the two sets of strain which have within the last half century been brought to bear upon it. Each has reacted upon the other. Perhaps the best thing to do is to consider the forces which for the last two generations have been challenging and reshaping inherited faiths, and then to consider the outcome of it all in the outstanding religious ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... Wiltshire village where I was staying there was a group of half-a-dozen cottages surrounded by gardens and shade trees, and every time I passed this spot on my way to and from the downs on that side, I was hailed by a loud challenging cry—a sort of "Hullo, who goes there!" Unmistakably the voice of a jackdaw, a pet bird no doubt, friendly and impudent as one always expects Jackie to be. And as I always like to learn the history of every pet daw I ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... Dominguez, was too far gone in drink, so there was nothing to stop them—except the guards at the garitas. And, I am sorry to say, the sergeant at El Nino Perdita let them pass through without so much as challenging. His account is that, seeing the carriage belonged to one of your Excellency's Ministers, he never thought of stopping it, and should not. Why ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... hand, and was surprised at the almost masculine sincerity with which the delicately gloved fingers returned the pressure. He looked into the blue eyes with a challenging scrutiny, and ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... ground. Nello, glancing at him, felt sure that he was absorbed in anxiety about Romola, and thought him such a pretty image of self-forgetful sadness, that he just perceptibly pointed his razor at him, and gave a challenging look at Piero di Cosimo, whom he had never forgiven for his refusal to see any prognostics of character in his favourite's handsome face. Piero, who was leaning against the other doorpost, close to ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... thought, of course, that I must be of my uncle's mind?" There was a crispness about her voice, an ominous challenging sparkle in ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... watches, steam-engines, or speaking and calculating machines. The upholder of the single substance has to spend himself in protestations that he is not denying the existence of the fact, or the phenomena called mind, but is merely challenging an arbitrary and unfounded hypothesis ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... his valiant brigades did not yet know that the clump of trees upon Cemetery Hill had marked the high tide of the Confederacy. All that memorable Fourth of July, following the close of the battle they had lain, facing Meade and challenging him to come on, confident that while the invasion of the North was over they could beat back once more the invasion of ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... his quest. Before the photographer's shop he saw a dachel wrathfully challenging a cat on the balcony of the adjoining building. The cat knew, and so did the puppy, that it was all buncombe on the puppy's part: the usual European war-scare, in which one of the belligerent parties ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... walked, talked, put on his gloves, shook hands, like a man who felt that he had power. He was not tall, but he carried his head so haughtily that he looked a commanding figure, and there was something daring and challenging in his eyes. I used to imagine that the "nobles" of whom Antonia was always talking probably looked very much like Christian Harling, wore caped overcoats like his, and just such a glittering diamond upon ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... thought can be or may; Only love's knowledge is the primal light. Questions keep camp along love's shining coast— Challenge my love and would my entrance stay: Across the buzzing, doubting, challenging host, I rush to thee, and cling, and ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald

... dare to go beyond this futile attempt to overawe him. He stood alone—his father and the others were reserved for another trial; and as, richly arrayed, he stood opposite to the jury, gazing fixedly first at one, then at the other, as though challenging their right to sit in judgment on him, one eye after another fell beneath ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... fifth came on. The young moon was shining brightly in a cloudless winter sky, and its light was increased by a new-fallen snow. Parties of soldiers were driving about the streets, making a parade of valor, challenging resistance, and striking the inhabitants indiscriminately with sticks ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... the barrack, and apparently went in by the door; to their amazement, when they came up they found the door closed and bolted, and it was only after loud knocking that they got a sleepy "All right" from some one inside, and after the usual challenging were admitted. There was no sign of the strange policeman when they got in, and on inquiry they learnt that no new constable had joined the station. The two men realised then that they had seen a ghost, but refrained from saying anything about it to the ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour

... was improved: she wore a fresh and extremely becoming morning dress, which set off her fine figure to advantage; and before Malcolm had tasted his coffee or looked at his letters she was challenging him gaily ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... a sudden thought occurred to him. Sentries began challenging at taps. He was close to the post of No. 5. He could even see the shadowy form of the sentry slowly pacing toward him, and here he stood in the garb of a private soldier instead of his official dress. It caused him quickly ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... had seen him primed for a sensation; never until that moment had he failed to aggravate their curiosity. He circled the room but once, before he confronted them in a fashion that would have been challenging, had it not been for ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... haste he had doffed boots, hat, hose, doublet and cloak, so that nothing remained save a pink jupon and pair of silken drawers. At the same time Aylward was hastily unbuckling the load with the intention of handing his master his armor piece by piece, when the Squire gave one last challenging peal from his silver trumpet into the very ear of ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... have had, as I had, forty-odd years to believe in it, you must waver in doubt of its reality whenever you see it. It seems too great to be true, standing there in its immortal sublimity, the temple of all the gods by pagan creation, and all the saints by Christian consecration, and challenging your veneration equally as classic or catholic. It is worthy the honor ascribed to it in the very latest edition of Murray's Handbook as "the best-preserved monument of ancient Rome"; worthy the praise of the fastidious and difficult ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... but would not run to twelve, which would have brought the invincible Jem Belcher down upon him. Faulkner claimed to be champion of the seniors, and even old Buckhorse's curious call rang out above the tumult as he turned the whole company to laughter and good humour again by challenging anything over eighty ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... bottle, a large bottle of distilled water, two measuring-glasses, and a smaller bottle half full of a pale-amber liquid. He had been standing motionless, staring at these objects with a peculiar and intent solemnity. Now, as if challenged and challenging, he drew the smaller measuring-glass toward him with one hand. He held it to the light and moved his finger nail slowly along the middle measuring line. Then with two hands that trembled he poured ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... promiscuous fashion; the freshmen and sophomores generally had a match of what was by courtesy called base-ball. The only intercollegiate contest of which I had any recollection, and as it seems the first ever to take place, was a ball game at Pittsfield between Williams and Amherst. Amherst was the challenging party, and the college by vote selected its team with much care and went forth to the contest with strong hopes. The game was not lacking in excitement. It was none of your new-fangled, umpire-ridden matches: the modern type of base-ball had not, of course, been invented. Foul balls were unknown, ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... with the Italian Premier, Orlando, and it was known that he had set his face against Italy's claim and against the secret treaty that recognized it. Consequently the Serbs were running no risk by challenging Signor Orlando to lay the matter before the American delegate. Whether, all things considered, it was a wise move to make has been questioned. Anyhow, the Italian delegation declined the suggestion on a number of grounds which several delegates considered convincing. The Conference, it urged, had ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... of his life, Brian wielded with accustomed vigour the supreme power. The Hy-Nials were, of course, his chief difficulty. In the year 1002, we find him at Ballysadare, in Sligo, challenging their obedience; in 1004, we find him at Armagh "offering twenty ounces of gold on Patrick's altar," staying a week there and receiving hostages; in 1005, he marched through Connaught, crossed the river Erne at Ballyshannon, proceeded through Tyrconnell ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... with keen interest and then watched Haggar's defeat with agitation, became excessively friendly and flattering toward Prentiss afterward. Prentiss felt sure, although he had no proof, that it had been Bemmon who had spurred the simple-minded Haggar into challenging him ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin

... of Voltaire upon the world is not easy. He was the chief leader, the most prominent and central figure, of that widespread intellectual revolt which extended from France over Europe during the middle of the eighteenth century. The spirit of doubt, questioning all ancient institutions, challenging them to prove their truth, arose everywhere, at times mocking, bitter, and superficial, or again earnest, thoughtful, deep as the deepest springs of human being. It has become almost a commonplace to say that Voltaire and his chief successor, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... bearserks challenging men to holm, 51 For heritage of outlawed men in Norway in the days of Harold Fairhair, 11 For the utmost limit of outlawry, 225 For heathen sacrifices in the earliest days of Christianity in Iceland, 226 For a rightful suitor ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... adventure, but by the aid of the golden lance always bore down her foe. After one of these fights she fell in with the Lady Flordelice, who was herself riding to Arles in the hope of gaining news of her husband, now a prisoner in the hands of the Moors. By her Bradamante sent a message challenging Roger to come forth to ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... ever came to any real prominence was early in the history of the institution. That year, the newly founded college turned out a wonderful football team, challenging and defeating Pennington, claimants of the State Championship, by a 17 to 6 score. After this truly unexpected victory Bartlett asked and received a game with the State University, but this eleven soundly trounced them, 28 to 7, and all aspirations ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman

... agitation accompanying it, she looked up quickly to find Carteret watching her; whereupon, mutely, instinctively, her eyes besought him to ask no questions, make no comment. For an appreciable space he kept her in suspense, his glance holding and challenging hers in close observation. Then as though, not without a measure of struggle, granting her request, he smiled at her, and, turning his attention to the contents of his plate, quietly went on with the business of luncheon. Damaris meanwhile, conscience-stricken—she couldn't tell why—by ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... come to the more practical, for I do not bring you this talk, challenging your criticism or inviting your praise of it as a literary production, but with the purpose of helping some one live as I would wish to live if I had ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... verdant gowns, so dolorously veiled in semi-transparent black, she stood behind her husband's chair. Her eyes met mine. They were no longer nervous or in expression vague; but oddly aggressive, challenging, defiantly alight. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... sure that's a nice, solid name," defended Billy, her chin still at a challenging tilt. "If it isn't 'Methuselah John,' what is ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter

... indignation as the lord of the wedding feast might have turned upon the person who came in without a wedding garment. In spite of herself Kate was disconcerted. She was astonished. She felt that David was challenging her presence there. It seemed to her he was looking through her, searching her, judging her, sentencing her, and casting her out, and presently his eyes wandered beyond her through the open hall door and ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... was warmly opposed by Sir James Graham and others, and was advocated with equal zeal. Lord PALMERSTON defended the foreign policy of the government in a speech of five hours, marked by great ability and eloquence. After going over the whole ground fully and in detail, he concluded by challenging the verdict of the house, whether the principles which had guided the foreign policy of the government had been proper and fitting, and whether, as a subject of ancient Rome could hold himself free from indignity by saying, "Civis Romanus ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... him with so little reverence for courts and cabinets, that he used to say if he had a son he would rather bring him up a cobbler than a courtier, and a hangman than a statesman. Bolingbroke once kindly said of him, "I never knew a man so formed to please, and to gain upon the affections while challenging ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... low forehead deeply scored with anxiety, the prominent light-coloured and glassy eyes staring with perplexity under bushy brows, which are as carefully combed as the hair of his head, the large obstinate nose with its challenging tilt and wide war-breathing nostrils, the broad white moustache and sudden pointed beard sloping inward; nor can one listen to the deep, tired, and ghostly voice slowly uttering the laborious ideas of his troubled mind ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... mountain games. The stakes are beaver, which is here current coin; and when the fur is gone, their horses, mules, rifles and shirts, hunting packs and breeches are staked. Daring gamblers make the rounds of the camp, challenging each other to play for the highest stake—his horse, his squaw if he have one, and as once happened his scalp. A trapper often squanders the produce of his hunt, amounting to hundreds of dollars, in a couple of hours; and supplied on credit with another equipment, ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... from it with a most melancholy expression of countenance. "You behold in me, friends," he sighed, "a victim of love," and his visage showed so lugubrious that it sorely tempted Louis to laugh, and hotly moved Huguette to anger, for she raged up to Villon, challenging the meaning of his speech. Villon gently cooled her impatience. "Hush, hush, my girl! There are many kinds of love, as you ought to know well enough. I am a rogue and a vagabond, no less, and so sometimes ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... his instruments, which consisted of 1 common hand-saw, 1 hatchet, 1 butcher knife, a large variety of smaller knives, and a small mountain of old rag. Neither of the principals exhibited any fear. Culkins insisted that, as the challenging party, he had the right to the word fire. This, after a bitter discussion, was granted. He urged his seconds to place him facing towards the town, so that the lights would be in his favour. This was done without any trouble, the immense ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne

... is my theory of life. You think it vague; but it is in that like most theories. Then I propose that we shall all be good. Don't you think it a feasible proposition? I see that you think you have effectually disposed of all complaint by challenging the complainer to suggest a remedy. But it is clear to me that a man in the water has a right to cry out, although he may not distinctly state how he proposes to avoid drowning. Your reasoning is that of those excellent Americans ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis

... Buckingham Palace, witness the coming and going of troops and officials and guests along it from every land on earth.... Interwoven in the texture of it all, mocking, perplexing, stimulating beyond measure, is the gleaming consciousness, the challenging knowledge: "You and your kind might still, if you could but grasp it here, mould all the ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... issue boldly to the front, and challenging the President-elect to meet the issue or risk the loss of the support of an important section of his own party. Oberkleine spoke with great effect, but the remarks were hardly his own. Some abler man had put into his mouth ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... His distinctive supremacy brought forth the challenging question, "Who art thou?" Jesus replied, "Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning." The many matters on which He might have judged them He refrained from mentioning, but testified anew of the Father, saying: ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... confident power That wakes our sleeping courage like a blow, We rise, half-shaken, to the challenging hour, And answer it — ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... interrupted, and he gave a kind of grim chuckle of derision. "My dear Durward, what do you suppose I'm after?... rape and adultery and Markovitch after us with a pistol? I tell you—" and here he spoke fiercely, as though he were challenging the whole ice-bound world around us—"that I want nothing but her happiness, her safety, her comfort! Do you suppose that I'm such an ass as not to recognise the kind of thing that my loving her would lead to? I tell you I'm after nothing for myself, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... paused and fixed his eyes upon each listener in turn, challenging disapproval, yet eager for sympathy at the same time. In place of criticism, however, he met only silence and breathless admiration. Also—he heard that distant sound they had forgotten, and realised it had come much nearer. It had reached the second floor. He made swift and ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... amid a flurry of snow, accompanied by a boisterous wind, which roared a bleak reminiscence of that first Thanksgiving Day on a storm rock-bound coast, when a few faithful souls had braved his fury and gone forth to give thanks for life and liberty. Despite his challenging roar, the boys of Weston High School played their usual game of football against a neighboring eleven and emerged from the field of conquest, battered and victorious, to rest in the proud bosoms of their families and devour much ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... and therein lies an additional danger; for whatever its assumed name or disguise, its essence is always the same, and its very speciousness calls for all our vigilance and {52} determination to fight it. We must not weary of challenging its root-assumption, or of exposing its insidious tendencies; we must not weary of reiterating the truth that God is not identical with the universe, but to be worshipped as the One who is over all; we must insist that His nearness ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... to the bedside of Mrs. Belmont, and threw himself into an approved pugilistic attitude, as if challenging that lady to take a 'set to' with him; while Bloody Mike stumbled over the prostrate form of the lady's maid, who occupied a temporary bed upon the floor. Forgetting his assumed part, he yelled out for something to drink, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... beer-bottles had died away, conversation drifted from dog to man-fights of all kinds. Humans resemble red-deer in some respects. Any talk of fighting seems to wake up a sort of imp in their breasts, and they bell one to the other, exactly like challenging bucks. This is noticeable even in men who consider themselves superior to Privates of the Line: it shows the Refining Influence of Civilization and the ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... the Herald sound a summons, for the whole city is to learn the laws she makes for all time to come. Apollo enters above. The Chorus challenging his right, Apollo declares himself Witness and ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton

... need of demonstrative affection. Each of these groping celibates supplied at any rate a want of which the other was impatiently conscious. Mr. Bantling, who was of rather a slow and a discursive habit, relished a prompt, keen, positive woman, who charmed him by the influence of a shining, challenging eye and a kind of bandbox freshness, and who kindled a perception of raciness in a mind to which the usual fare of life seemed unsalted. Henrietta, on the other hand, enjoyed the society of a gentleman who appeared somehow, in his way, made, by expensive, roundabout, almost ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... Court have been raising against our legislative authority has reached, or will reach, England. They held a public meeting, which ended,—or rather began, continued, and ended,—in a riot; and ever since then the leading agitators have been challenging each other, refusing each other's challenges, libelling each other, swearing the peace against each other, and blackballing each other. Mr. Longueville Clarke, who aspires to be the O'Connell of Calcutta, called another ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... in his place, he called the attention of the peers to the angry and vindictive denunciations which were daily heaped upon him by the public, declaring that he was wholly ignorant of the crimes which were laid to his charge, and challenging his enemies to bring forward any ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... of the herd was a magnificent black bull, who stood on the bank and bellowed at the boat sailing past, as if challenging it to a fight to the finish. He was afraid of nothing on earth and revelled in a battle which would allow him to display his tremendous prowess, power ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... the protection of my authority, under the shadow of the laws I have created, men live and labour and rejoice. Do you hear this divine harmony of life? Do you hear the war cry that men hurl into the face of the future, challenging it to strife?" ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... the said Nashoby being a Tract of Land of four miles square, the which for a long time hath been, and still is deserted and left by the Indians none being now resident there, and those of them who lay claim to it being desireous to sell said land; and some English challenging it to be theirs by virtue of Purchase; and besides the Town of Groton in particular, hath of late extended their Town lyne into it, takeing away a considerable part of it; and Especially of Meadow (as wee are Well informed) Wherefore wee above all o'r Neighbour Towns, stand in the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... British Museum acting as "fence"; how wide and long and spacious was the superb chamber that held the statue the gods loved—none of these things interested me—do not now. What I saw was an epoch in stone; a chronicle telling the story of civilization; a glove thrown down to posterity, challenging the competition ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith

... Government at once far-seeing and resolute, capable of great resolves and prompt action. Of such a Government there is, however, no immediate prospect. The present Cabinet has given its testimonials: a challenge sent to the Boers by a Government that did not know it was challenging anyone, that did not know the adversary's strength, nor his determination to fight; and a war begun in military ignorance displayed by the Cabinet, and carried on by half measures until the popular ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson

... interpreter must devote his whole attention to the poetic contents of the composition, especially to the delivery of the march-like rhythms, which possess a life of their own, appearing now calm and circumspect, and anon bold and challenging. The march-like element naturally requires ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... too, in all the insolence of beauty, defying criticism, and challenging the admiration that was lavished on her. I should like to describe her dress; but I know how dangerous it is for the uninitiate to venture within the verge of those awful mysteries over which, as hierophants, Devy and ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... loops about his neck, a gold brooch with an ancient Roman medal in his cap. But the most notable thing in him was his thick golden hair, whence La Hire had named him "Capdorat," because he was so blond, and right keen in war, and hardy beyond others. And here he was challenging me, who stood before him in a ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... yet prove prophetic. But the catastrophe will not be the result of Germany's lack of a Navy; it will be the result of challenging the naval ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... individual poems, the critics did not take kindly to the 'Drama of Exile,' and 'Blackwood' in particular criticised it at considerable length, calling it 'the least successful of her works.' The subject, while half challenging comparison with Milton, lends itself only too readily to fancifulness and unreality, which were among the most besetting sins of Miss Barrett's genius. The minor poems were incomparably more popular, and the favourite of all was that masterpiece of rhetorical ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... themselves would perchance soften down resentment, and bring them to a healthy frame of mind. The Veientine enemy and the Etruscans proceeded with proportionately greater precipitation; they provoked them to battle, at first by riding up to the camp and challenging them; at length when they produced no effect, by reviling the consuls and the army alike, they declared that the pretence of internal dissension was assumed as a cloak for cowardice: and that the consuls rather distrusted the ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... deadly chill. His ambition is to appear out of the ordinary, being really quite within common lines: the dissembler is in some respect beyond the ordinary, but wishes not to show himself otherwise than as an ordinary mortal with ordinary knowledge. The pretender is on the offensive, challenging attention: the dissembler is on his defence against notice. "Simulation," says Bolingbroke, "is a stiletto, not only an offensive but an unlawful weapon, and the use of it may be rarely, very rarely, excused, but never justified. Dissimulation is a shield, ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... you," he exclaimed in a challenging tone, "that I, at any rate, am not at all in ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... and prancing, and the group made way for her, he saw a deep wide ditch across the road, on whose opposite side was ranged irregularly the flower of Scaurnose's younger manhood, calmly, even merrily prepared to defend their entrenchment. They had been chaffing the factor, and loudly challenging the constables to come on, when they recognised Malcolm in the distance, and expectancy stayed the rush of their bruising wit. For they regarded him as beyond a doubt come from the marchioness with messages of goodwill. When he rode up, therefore, they raised a great shout, everyone welcoming ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... finger under Rebecca's chin and looked into her eyes; eyes as soft, as clear, as unconscious, and childlike as they had been when she was ten. He remembered the other pair of challenging blue ones that had darted coquettish glances through half-dropped lids, shot arrowy beams from under archly lifted brows, and said gravely, "Don't form yourself on her, Rebecca; clover blossoms that grow in the fields beside Sunnybrook mustn't be tied in the same bouquet with gaudy ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... composed by Bulow, called Die Entsagende. There was little else that was enjoyable at the festival concert with the exception of a cantata, Das Grab im Busento by Weisheimer, and a regular scandal arose in connection with Drasecke's 'German March.' For some obscure reason Liszt adopted a challenging and protecting attitude towards this strange composition, written apparently in mockery by a man of great talent in other directions. Liszt insisted on Bulow's conducting the march, and ultimately Hans made a success of it, even doing it by heart; ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... of my travelling is done on foot, that if I cherished betting propensities, I should probably be found registered in sporting newspapers under some such title as the Elastic Novice, challenging all eleven stone mankind to competition in walking. My last special feat was turning out of bed at two, after a hard day, pedestrian and otherwise, and walking thirty miles into the country to breakfast. The road was so lonely in the night, that I ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... "whether they were for Ireland, or England." Even the hackney coachmen exhibited their patriotic self-denial by the heroism of refusing to carry any fare to the Castle, the residence of the viceroy. The passion became even more powerful than duelling. A Dr. Andrews, of the Castle party, challenging Lambert, a member, at the door of the Commons, on some election squabble, Lambert said, "I shall go first into the house, and vote against that rascal Neville Jones." Andrews repeating the insult, and, as it seems, not allowing time for this patriotic vote, Lambert went in and complained; in consequence ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... astonishment, to feel next that all the privacy in the world couldn't have sufficed to mitigate the start with which she greeted this free application of my moustache: the blood had jumped to her face, she quickly recovered her hand and jerked at me, twisting herself round, a vacant, challenging stare. During the next few instants several extraordinary things happened, the first of which was that now I was close to them the eyes of loveliness I had come up to look into didn't show at all the conscious light I had just been pleased to see them flash across ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... was accused of stealing an overcoat from stateroom No. 10. A judge was appointed; also clerks, a crier of the court, constables, sheriffs; counsel for the State and for the defendant; witnesses were subpoenaed, and a jury empaneled after much challenging. The witnesses were stupid and unreliable and contradictory, as witnesses always are. The counsel were eloquent, argumentative, and vindictively abusive of each other, as was characteristic and proper. The case was at last submitted and duly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... to translate at all satisfactorily, owing to the multitude of images compressed together. But the idea expressed is a fine one—the courage of the insect challenging the sun, and only chanting more and more as the heat and the thirst increase. The poem has, if you like, the fault of exaggeration, but the colour and music are very fine; and even the exaggeration itself has the merit of making the images ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... for him to know which of two different lectiones I was translating. As a matter of fact, though I did not tell him this, I did not know either. Especially useful is this when one is confronted with a rude, challenging, direct question as to any point in religion or politics; I reply with a sonorous and, I hope, well-balanced sentence, from which the actual meaning has been carefully extracted, and so escape in the fog. It is indeed from one point of view a mercy that ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain

... The loud and challenging strains of a band drew Neale toward the center of the main street, where men were pouring into ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... you send me in a memorandum shewing that the alteration will have a much better effect on the large commerce of Trieste than on the comparatively trifling trade of Udine. I shall send it into the Council without disclosing the authorship, but backing it with my authority, and challenging the opposition to refute your arguments. Finally, if they do not decide reasonably I shall proclaim before them all my intention to send the memoir to Vienna with my opinion ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... two or three houses and the stir of morning life. Ladies with a single garment looped under their arm pits were pouring water over themselves from cocoanut shells, and whole colonies of game-cocks were tethered out on the end of three feet of twine, cursing each other and challenging each other to fights. The male population almost to a man was engaged in the process of stroking the legs of these jewels, to make them strong, and some of the children ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... and subtle, wild and sleepy by turns; oftentimes rising to the clouds; oftentimes challenging the heavens. She wears a diadem round her head. And I knew by childish memories that she could go abroad upon the winds, when she heard the sobbing of litanies or the thundering of organs, and when she beheld the mustering of summer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... sunshine after two months of bitter north wind, and the insects took life immediately. Early in the morning the greenfinches were screaming at each other in the elm—they were in such a hurry to get out their song, they screamed; the chaffinches were challenging, and the starlings fluttering their wings at the high window, and all this excitement at one gleam of sun. A friend asked me what bird it was that always finished up its song with a loud call for 'ginger-beer'—whatever ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... fearless bull and the timid spaniel, the bloated pug and the friendly Newfoundland, the woolly lap-dog and the whining cur; some growling in defiance, some whimpering in misery, some looking imploringly—their intelligent eyes challenging present sympathy on the ground of past fidelity—all, all in vain: the hour that summons the Mussulman to prayer, equally silently tolls their death-knell; yon glorious sun, setting in a flood of fire, lights them to their untimely ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... warrior named Dares, a man of immense strength and bulk, who was also celebrated for his skill with the cestus, presented himself to contest this prize. He brandished his huge fists in the air, and paced vaingloriously backward and forward in the arena, challenging any one in the assembly to meet him. But there was no response; his friends were too well acquainted with his skill, and the Sicilians were awed by his formidable appearance. At last, therefore, imagining that nobody would ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... daunted,—although, of course, there were some days of secret tears—rather I was spurred to tireless effort. If they beat me at anything, I was grimly determined to make them sweat for it! Once I remember challenging a great, hard farmer-boy to battle, when I knew he could whip me; and he did. But ever ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... Gerrit repeated shortly, with his challenging bright gaze. "That means Peach Garden. My wife is a Manchu," he asserted in a more biting tone; "a Manchu and the daughter of a noble. Thank you, Rhoda, particularly. But I have always counted on you. Will you go ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... forth its challenging order—"Commence firing", and with a crash that made the very air vibrate, the great guns on board the two battleships opened fire, sending their ranging shots so truly that the announcement from the fire-control stations of "Range correct" seemed superfluous. Fire had been opened with the guns ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood



Words linked to "Challenging" :   intriguing, thought-provoking, ambitious



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