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Unclasp   Listen
verb
Unclasp  v. t.  To loose the clasp of; to open, as something that is fastened with, or as with, a clasp; as, to unclasp a book; to unclasp the hands; to unclasp one's heart.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Unclasp" Quotes from Famous Books



... form a ring, and dance or walk round singing the words, and keeping the ring form until the end of the fourth line in each successive verse, when they unclasp, and stand still. Each child then takes hold of her skirt and dances individually to the right and left, making two or three steps. Then all walk round singly, singing the second four lines, and making suitable action ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... am, the wooer of men's hearts. Unclasp thy lips; yield me thy close embrace; So shall thy thoughts once more to heaven climb, Their music linger here, ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... clinging to Dave, merely clutching him the tighter when he tried to unclasp her hold. Her movement into the shelter of his rival's arms infuriated Longorio, who uttered an exclamation and fumbled uncertainly with his holster. But his fingers were clumsy. He could not take his eyes from the pair, and he seemed upon the ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... taught the old man how to stand erect once more—though it was but a spasmodic effort—and his poor fingers were clasped round the hilt of an old cavalry sabre, from which female hands had failed to unclasp them. There, in another cart, lay an old woman, who had been bed-ridden and utterly helpless for many a year, but war had wrought miracles for her. It had taught her once again to use her shrunken limbs, to tumble out of the bed to which she had been so ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... it, Ganassi. May I unclasp it to behold its beauty and splendor?" Keenly the old man looked into the face of the boy, measuring ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart

... in the black knee breeches. Poor Mr. Crayshaw! It was not a dignified position for a very stiff and solemn London lawyer to have to hop along a gravelled path with a little boy hanging on to his leg. He made a desperate attempt to unclasp the clutching fingers, but the sharp teeth were so uncomfortably near his hand that he gave that up and tried kicking. It did not make it easier for him either to know that his appearance had been quite too much for the auntly ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham

... will exert their attention merely with the hope of succeeding. We have seen a little boy of three years old, frowning with attention for several minutes together, whilst he was trying to clasp and unclasp a lady's bracelet; his whole soul was intent upon the business; he neither saw nor heard any thing else that passed in the room, though several people were talking, and some happened to be looking at him. The pleasure of success, when he clasped the bracelet, was quite sufficient; he looked for ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... with him as swiftly as a bird. His best groom on his best horse followed vainly behind. "My lord", cried he, "when wilt thou come back, that thou ridest so fast and far". But Theodoric knew by this time that it was no earthly steed that he was bestriding, and from which he vainly tried to unclasp his legs. "I am ill-mounted", cried he to the groom. "This must be the foul fiend on which I ride. Yet will I return, if God wills and Holy Mary". With that he vanished from his servant's sight, and since then no man has ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... complied with her request, and she made such a cunning knot in the garment as only she could unravel. For his part Gugemar gave the Queen a wonderfully fashioned girdle which only he could unclasp, and he begged her that she would never grant her love to any man who could not free her from it. Each promised the other solemnly to respect the vows they ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... boundless ocean of thy beauty Runs this poor river, charged with streams of zeal, Returning thee the tribute of my duty, Which here my love, my youth, my plaints reveal. Here I unclasp the book of my charged soul, Where I have cast th' accounts of all my care; Here have I summed my sighs. Here I enrol How they were spent for thee. Look, what they are. Look on the dear expenses of my youth, And see how just I reckon with thine eyes. ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable

... behind him on his horse. The first lost his arm by one sweep of the king's sword; the second was overthrown and trampled on; and the last, by a desperate struggle, was dashed down, and his skull cleft by the king's sword; but his dying grasp was so tight upon the plaid that Bruce was forced to unclasp the brooch that secured it, and leave both in the dead man's hold. It was long preserved by the Macdougals of Lorn, as a trophy of the narrow escape ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... struggled manfully to gain the shore with his bride, the rush of the torrent bore them down and they sank to rise no more. An hour later their bodies were found locked together in a last embrace. The rough mountaineers had not the heart to unclasp that embrace but buried them by the side of the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... unclasp your tendrils clinging, Stealthily the trees enringing! I have learnt your wily secret: I will use it, I shall keep it! Cunning spider, cease your spinning! My web boasts the best beginning. Yours is wan and pale and ashen: After no such lifeless fashion Mine is woven. Golden sunbeams Prisoned ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... Europa's mantle blew unclasp'd, From off her shoulder backward borne: From one hand droop'd a crocus: one hand grasp'd The mild ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... his eyes; but God's finger does it. The outward form of his death is but putting into symbol and visibility the awful characteristics of that last moment for us all. However closely we have been twined with others, each of us has to unclasp dear hands, and make that journey through the narrow, dark tunnel by himself. We live alone in a very real sense, but we each have to die as if there were not another human being in the whole universe but only ourselves. But the solitude may be a solitude with God. Up there, alone with the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... fowl of any kind with feathers of pure gold. The eldest made up her mind to wait for a good opportunity and then pluck a feather for herself. So as soon as Johnny went out of the room she put out her hand and seized the wing of the goose, but what was her horror to find that she could not unclasp her fingers again, nor even move her hand from the ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... as possible, that is to say, until the fingers tremble slightly, look at him in the same way as in the preceding experiment and keep your hands on his as though to squeeze them together still more tightly. Tell him to think that he cannot unclasp his fingers, that you are going to count three, and that when you say "three" he is to try to separate his hands while thinking all the time: "I cannot do it, I cannot do it . . ." and he will find it impossible. ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue

... politician hailed with secret delight, hailed as the partner of his own enterprise, that new element of political power which the changing time began to reveal here then, that power which was already beginning to unclasp on the necks of the masses, the collar of the absolute will—that was already proclaiming, in the stifled undertones of 'that greater part which carries it,' another supremacy. They gave in secret the right hand of a joyful fellowship ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... between himself and her. His first care was given to the child; whose cries, indeed, as she lay writhing on the trundle-bed, made it of peremptory necessity to postpone all other business to the task of soothing her. He examined the infant carefully, and then proceeded to unclasp a leathern case, which he took from beneath his dress. It appeared to contain medical preparations, one of which he mingled with ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... that she might bind up her head and stanch the blood; but he did not hear, or heed,—he was lost in grief. M. de Bois also appealed to him, but in vain; then Gaston attempted to use force to recall him to reason, and, seizing both of Maurice's arms, essayed to unclasp them from their hold of the inanimate form, saying as ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... did it myself!' Yes—the King would have to be told— something! Stooping, he tried to detach the pistol from the lifeless hand, but the fingers, though still warm were tightened on the weapon, and he dared not unclasp them. He was afraid! He stood up again, and looked around him. His glance fell on the knot of regal flowers he had noticed in the morning,—the great roses,—the voluptuous orchids—tied with their golden ribbon. He took them hastily and flung them down beside her,—then watched a little trickling ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... second verse, the children stop, unclasp their hands and suit their actions to the words contained in ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman

... The professor heard him breathing quickly, saw him, almost as a shadow just shown by the faint light that entered from the street through the two small windows, clasp and unclasp his hands, touch his forehead, his eyelids, move in his chair, like a man profoundly stirred and unable to be ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... taller youth, pointing to her necklace and the clasp of her belt, "it is those vanities that are the Anathema. Take off that necklace and unclasp that belt, that they may be burned in the holy Bonfire of Vanities, and save ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... prayer, half battle-shout—pealed above the bellowing stadium. Even as he cried it, all saw his form draw upward as might Prometheus's unchained. They saw the fingers of the Spartan unclasp. They saw his bloody face upturned and torn with helpless agony. They saw his great form totter, topple, fall. The last dust cloud, and into it the multitude seemed ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... hand grasping my coat-tails. Marston had seized me, and with the other hand was clinging to the iron rail on the top of the paddle-box,—clinging with the death-grip of a drowning man, if you know what that is. I tried to unclasp the fingers,—to drive him from his hold on the rail. Of course I couldn't; it was Death's hand, not his, that was holding there, and my own strength was going, when a thought flashed into my mind. I tore open my coat, and it slipped from me like a grape-skin from the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... fatuus" gleam. Duty stood forward with a godlike beam, And brought before the fainting sickened heart, The words God listened to, "till death us part," Two short words, Love and Duty, when together How bearable the rains of stormy weather; But when they unclasp hands, e'en then the dew Grows into ice-points, piercing through and through. "Till death us part," and am I really free? Is the chain severed for eternity? Look back my conscience, for the hours go fast, Through the dim corridors of the far past. Oh memory, from ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins

... whatever that I did notice. But, when evening came, and he showed in Jarber, and, when Jarber wouldn't be helped off with his cloak, and poked his cane into cane chair-backs and china ornaments and his own eye, in trying to unclasp his brazen lions of himself (which he couldn't do, after all), I could have ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens

... surge of sound, so potent are the rhythms they obey. Men come and tug them by the heels. One grasps the starting thews upon their calves. Another is impatient for their place. But they strain still, locked together, and forgetful of the world. At length they have enough: then slowly, clingingly unclasp, turn round with gazing eyes, and are resumed, sedately, into the diurnal round of common life. Another pair is in their room upon ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... leave me, Pish! unclasp these wanton arms; Sugared words can ne'er deceive me, Though thou prove a thousand charms. Fie, fie, forbear; No common snare Can ever my affection chain: Thy painted baits, And poor deceits, Are all bestowed ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... so bitterly now, and was so much distressed, that he thought it prudent to unclasp her waist, and hold ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... was clasped, but not locked, although there was a lock, and Jerrie thought involuntarily of the little key lying with the other articles on the dead woman's person. To unclasp the bag required a little strength, for the steel was covered with rust; but it yielded at last to Jerrie's strong fingers; and the bag came open, disclosing first some square object carefully wrapped in a silk handkerchief which had been white in its day, but which now was yellow and ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... added to them her ear and nose rings. "Your waist chain" he snapped. She unclasped and dropped its golden weight into those greedy hands. "Take off your anklets, I want all" he sneered. She knelt on the ground to unclasp them. Then, rising, handed them to him, wondering ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee

... imperial grace, rising from her wrappings, as it were, like Venus from the wave, or Galatea from her marble, or a beatified spirit from the tomb. She stood forth, and fixed her deep and glowing eyes upon Leo's eyes, and I saw his clenched fists unclasp, and his set and quivering features relax beneath her gaze. I saw his wonder and astonishment grow into admiration, and then into fascination, and the more he struggled the more I saw the power of her dread beauty fasten on him and take ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... catch her arms, trying to unclasp her hands. She hung on them with her head fallen back; her hair touched the ground. "Come here!" his master called, and Tamb' Itam helped to ease her down. It was difficult to separate her fingers. Jim, bending over her, looked earnestly upon her face, and all at once ran ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... of her little girls, join her prayers and thanksgivings with his, that all papa's treasures were safe. Not till the flames were dying down, morning twilight showing cold and gray, and Sarah coming in with bundles of rescued garments, was Johnnie's mind free enough to unclasp his hand, and show something fast held in it. 'Aunt Helen's cross, mamma; I thought I might keep hold of it, because I ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... locks of molten yellow gold Hung over his cheek so brown, And a red mantle of Venice silk, Fell from his shoulder, down. Dark frown'd the knight—'Vile churl!' he said; But ere he utter'd more, The stranger let the mantle fall Unclasp'd upon the floor,— And off he cast the yellow locks— And, lo! the lady fair, Blushing and casting from her cheek Her glossy raven hair! Down fell the dagger; down the knight Sank kneeling and opprest; And the lady oped her snow white arms, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... moon shone full into their startled faces. A child could have read their story. In the surprise of the moment they forgot to unclasp hands. ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith

... goddess was resting in her sleep in such a way that no one could possibly unclasp the necklace without awaking her. Loki stood hesitatingly by the bedside for a few moments, and then began rapidly to mutter the runes which enabled the gods to change their form at will. As he did this, Heimdall saw him shrivel up until he was changed ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... spoon for a traitor to feed with the devil than any other order; unclasp him, and he's a grey wolf with a golden star in the forehead; so superstitiously he follows the pope that he forsakes Christ in not giving Caesar his due. His vows seem heavenly, but in meddling with state business he seems ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... New Common Prayer Booke, unclasp't. Reprinted at London, with some briefe and necessary Obseruations to refute the Lyes and Scandalls that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various

... and sobs, my little Life! I did but snatch away the unclasp'd knife: Some safer toy will soon arrest thine eye, And to quick laughter change this peevish cry! Poor stumbler on the rocky coast of Woe, 5 Tutor'd by Pain each source of pain to know! Alike the foodful fruit and scorching fire Awake thy eager grasp ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... was too late. He could not unclasp the trusting little hand that was slipped in his. He could not cloud the happiness of the eager little face by ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston

... once again laid her head on his breast. They remained so a little while without stirring; except that some whispers were exchanged too low for others to hear, and once more she raised her face to kiss him. A few minutes after, those who could look saw his colour change; he felt the arms unclasp their hold, and, as he laid her gently back on the pillow, they fell languidly down the will and the power that had sustained them were gone. Alice was gone; but the departing spirit had left a ray of brightness ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... march! Splendid. Why, Redford, I had no idea you were so well up in your drill," said Rosco, stepping to the spot beside the pistols, which the mate had just vacated. "You are fit to act fugleman to the British army. Now, clasp your hands behind your back, and don't unclasp them till I give you leave. It's a new piece of drill but ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne

... was a pleasant duty and good to my heart when the Queen told me to come among her Saulteaux children and I expect the Crees and the Saulteaux to take my hand as they did last year. In our hands they feel the Queen's, and if they take them the hands of the white and red man will never unclasp. In other lands the white and red man are not such friends as we have always been, and why? Because the Queen always keeps her word, always protects her red men. She learned last winter that bad men from the United States had come into her country and had killed ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris

... woman suddenly rose to her feet and went away. Aratoff tried to rise also ... but he could not stir, he could not unclasp his hands, and could only gaze ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... unclasp a secret book, And to your quick-conceiving discontent I'll read your matter deep and dangerous." 1. HENRY IV., ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... striving vainly to unclasp the arms that clung to him, "I must go—I must call assistance: this may be more serious than I thought. Try to rouse yourself, Eleanor: I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... advanced, weeping bitterly, and knelt and kissed her father's feet. The poor man, with emotion, raised her and clasped a girdle of diamonds round her waist, which was before ungirdled; it was part of her dower. No one could unclasp it but her husband, and this concluded the ceremony. Shortly afterwards the bride was borne in procession to the congratulations of all the women present. After about half an hour she was conducted to a private room ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... her room and resolutely began to unclasp the fasteners of her butterfly dress. A ripple of astonishment went through the rooms downstairs when she descended clad in a white linen skirt and a middy blouse. All the girls had heard about the dress from New York and were impatient to see ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... would be the necklace, And all day long to fall and rise Upon her balmy bosom, With her laughter or her sighs, And I would lie so light, so light, I scarce should be unclasp'd at night. ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various

... his eye hurriedly over the paper by the light of a dark lanthorn that had meanwhile been brought upon deck, unclasp his hunting-knife, and divide the ligatures of the captive, and then warmly press his liberated hands within his own, were, with Captain de Haldimar, but the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... perjure not thy soul," and he strove to release himself from her grasp. "Unclasp thine arms, Francis Stafford, and hearken ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... won't mention even at this late day. I will not turn state's evidence notwithstanding the Statute of Limitations has run, as N.V. Creede advises me, against any one but Dick McGill—and the reason for my exposing him is merely tit for tat. Ma Fewkes could not unclasp the hands; but she produced an effect ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... 't is once, thou lovest; And I will fit thee with the remedy. I know we shall have revelling to-night; I will assume thy part in some disguise, And tell fair Hero I am Claudio; And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart, And take her hearing prisoner with the force And strong encounter of my amorous tale: Then, after, to her father will I break; And the conclusion is, she shall be thine: In practice let us put ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]

... Bob was by her side, and with his arm around her; and Molly rose to her feet with an ineffectual effort to unclasp his hands. ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.

... your life and bear to Vasilici. Seeing it, he will welcome you as he would ourself. With him return triumphantly to Sturatzberg, and if a rabble of rebellious soldiery, led away by traitors who are among us, stand in your way, I can trust Captain Ellerey's sword to cut a path through it. Will you unclasp the bracelet for ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... stood looking at herself in the mirror. It was almost time for the curtain to go up. Dressed in the convent robe, the strings of pearls was still about her neck. Should she unclasp it, should she not? If they went with her on the stage would she not be betraying her art; would they not clutch and strangle her, strangle "Camille," until Esperance had to come back in her place? And if she cast it aside, her loyalty, her promise? Must she wear fetters to keep faith? Oh, ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... anon A stem that a tower might rest upon, Standing spear-straight in the waist-deep moss, Its bony roots clutching around and across, As if they would tear up earth's heart in their grasp Ere the storm should uproot them or make them unclasp; Its cloudy boughs singing, as suiteth the pine, To snow-bearded sea-kings old songs of the brine, 20 Till they straightened and let their staves fall to the floor, Hearing waves moan again on the perilous shore Of Vinland, perhaps, while their prow groped ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... word!" I said sternly. "Unclasp his belt, Tom. Yes, take his gun. If he moves, or utters a sound, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish

... Dubois, stooping down in order that La Fillon might unclasp his frock, "you see that now things are much changed, and that I can no longer visit you as ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)



Words linked to "Unclasp" :   let go, clasp



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